断头台
Guide
中国对未来的探索
王丹
致我的父母
介绍
每次看到新闻标题宣布中美官员再次发生冲突时，我都觉得这种情况不仅仅是悲剧，也很滑稽，因为我确信没有哪个民族比美国人和中国人更相似。
两国都弥漫着一种物质主义倾向，这种倾向往往粗俗不堪，有时导致对成功企业家的崇敬，有时则导致极度低俗的炫耀，总体而言，这促成了激烈的竞争氛围。中国人和美国人都很务实：他们奉行“使命必达”的态度，这有时会导致工作仓促。两国都充斥着兜售捷径的投机者，尤其是在健康和财富方面。两国人民都欣赏科技的崇高：对突破物理极限的宏伟项目充满敬畏。中美两国的精英阶层常常对广大民众的政治观点感到不安。但民众和精英阶层都坚信，他们是一个独一无二的强大国家，如果小国不服从，就应该发挥自身的影响力。
作为一个在美中两国生活时间几乎相等的加拿大人，我形成了这样的观点。对我而言，这两个国家既令人兴奋，又令人抓狂，最重要的是，它们都极其怪诞。加拿大整洁有序。有时，我一踏入加拿大国界，就能立刻放松下来。而如果你开车在美国和中国转转，就会看到一些完全疯狂的人和地方。这并非贬义。这两个国家之所以如此混乱，部分原因在于它们都是全球变革的引擎。欧洲人只对过去抱有乐观态度，他们固守着僵化的经济模式，因为他们对美国或中国的做法过于挑剔。而世界其他地区要么过于成熟，要么过于年轻，都无法与这两个超级大国的影响力相匹敌。正是美国人和中国人——硅谷、深圳、华尔街和北京——将决定世界各地人们的想法和消费选择。
它们并非世界上仅有的两个重要国家，远非如此。但如果我们不了解美国和中国的运作方式和互动模式，那么在很大程度上，我们就无法理解世界上的许多重大变革。这两个国家正在重塑国际秩序，也在重塑彼此。更清晰地认识中国——它令人瞩目的优势、令人震惊的劣势以及介于两者之间的一切——也有助于我们更清晰地认识美国。
要了解中国，我们必须从这个国家最引人入胜的城市——北京开始。
北京的魅力不在于它的美好，而在于它的不美好。从大多数角度来看，北京的生活都显得沉闷乏味。它位于中国干旱的北方，沙尘暴时常席卷这座城市蜿蜒曲折的巷弄，这些巷弄可以追溯到帝制时代，或是灰蒙蒙的苏联式公寓楼。在过去的十年左右，政府用砖瓦封堵了许多曾经热闹非凡的地方，包括众多酒吧和路边烧烤摊，使这座城市变成了一个毫无乐趣的区域。想体验一下冒险的感觉吗？那就去挑战一下在北京宽阔的道路上飞驰的车流吧。就像莫斯科或平壤一样，北京的街道给人的感觉就像……这些建筑原本是为了阅兵式而建，而非为了日常生活。事实上，北京的城市设计几乎犯了所有可能出错的地方。
但首都北京也是一座充满威严和实质的城市。它吸引着中国众多最聪明的人才，包括科学家、科技领袖以及那些渴望在共产党内晋升的人。政治局那些表情严肃的委员们可不是闹着玩的。对他们来说，“伟大”不仅仅是一句口号，而是一场生死攸关的全力以赴的追求。在本书的其余部分，北京象征着中国共产党和中央政府。中国的领导人深受强烈的偏执所驱使，他们竭尽所能地掌控未来。
七岁时，我和父母从中国移民到加拿大。高中时，我们搬到了费城郊区绿树成荫的地方（我父母现在还住在那里）。大学去纽约读完，又在硅谷工作后，我回到中国考察科技发展。我逐渐领悟到一点至关重要的道理：这个国家永远处于变革之中。在香港、北京和上海的生活经历让我受益匪浅，这不仅仅是因为这些是中国最繁荣的经济区。六年间，我亲身经历了经济蓬勃发展，最终却陷入令人窒息的政治压制。我见证了最高领导人习近平为参与大国竞争而不断动员全国力量。我追踪了美国对中国科技公司日益严密的限制，以及它们为摆脱美国束缚所做的努力。我还经历了习近平执政三年，力求实现“清零”，起初令人瞩目，但最终却让整个国家陷入了巨大的苦难之中。
中国政府建造光鲜亮丽的公共设施，毫不犹豫地监禁少数民族或封锁整个城市。太多外人看到的只是繁荣或镇压。生活在那里，你会同时感受到生活水平的持续提高和来自北京的威权气息。对我来说，既看到情况在好转，又看到情况在恶化，这并不矛盾。我看到中国既有强大的企业家，也有……以及一个强有力的政府，一个行动迅速、破坏力强、打击人民的国家。
我曾在Gavekal Dragonomics担任技术分析师，这是一家服务于金融领域的投资研究公司。我们是一个小型分析师团队，由几位曾是经济记者的编辑管理。我的工作是为对冲基金、捐赠基金和其他渴望获得中国分析的资产管理公司撰写研究报告。Dragonanomics的研究并非聚焦于特定公司，而是着眼于更具宏观意义的问题，例如中国的发展方向及其对世界的影响。投资组合经理们毫不避讳地直击问题核心，他们会问我：中国的政治体制真的能够孕育出科技巨头吗？当世界其他国家纷纷设置贸易壁垒时，先进制造业能否成功？经济疲软将如何影响北京对台湾的战略布局？
如果我不能给出令人满意的答案，对话就会变成一场苏格拉底式的拷问，而不是轻松愉快的交流。尽管对冲基金经理有时令人讨厌，但我发现与他们交谈很有价值。金融界人士很容易陷入哲学思辨，促使我深入思考一些重要问题。我努力解读习近平将带领中国走向何方，这意味着我要阅读党的文本，无论多么晦涩难懂；我要走访不同的地区，无论多么偏僻。
通过尽可能频繁地前往一些小城市——其中一些几乎只是工业园区——我领悟到大多数美国人，甚至许多中国人都没有意识到的一点：去中国那些鲜为人知的城市旅行乐趣无穷。无论走到哪里，我都能发现令人惊艳的美食、奇特的景象和令人难忘的人们。我发现，中国的活力远超大多数关于中国的新闻报道所呈现的，而这些报道往往只关注北京的政治运作。试想一下，如果世界其他国家仅仅通过华盛顿特区的动态来了解美国，他们将会错过多少精彩。
我处处都能感受到中国令人窒息、有时甚至有些鲁莽的发展速度。我试图捕捉这个国家在疫情冲击下发生的种种变化和冲突。为了应对日益严峻的国际环境，我每年都写一封信。这些信件某种程度上算是我的日记，记录着我的所见所感。2020年，我写了阅读习近平在《寻求真理》（中共的旗舰理论杂志）上发表的每一篇讲话；2021年，我写了香港、北京和上海之间的差异；2022年，我写了在新冠疫情最严重的时期，漫步于云南省山区——其北部是历史悠久的西藏，南部则像极了泰国——的感受。
我一直在思考美国。这不仅仅是因为特朗普政府发动了贸易和技术战；北京也始终密切关注着美国。当然，中国领导人愿意向欧洲、日本、新加坡以及其他许多国家学习。但他们对美国的仰慕程度超过了其他任何国家，并将自身与这个世界头号强国相比较。
美国和中国之间的互补性之强，几乎令人难以置信。两国建立起长达数十年的经济伙伴关系，对美国消费者和中国工人来说都极为有利，这绝非偶然。但在政治层面，这两个体系却截然不同。美国体现了多元化和个人保护的优点，而中国则展现了快速发展带来的机遇与挑战。
过去四十年间，中国变得更加富裕，科技实力更强，外交影响力也日益增强。中国从美国身上汲取了丰富的经验，甚至开始在资本主义、工业以及激发民众旺盛的抱负等美国擅长的领域超越美国。如果你想体验底特律鼎盛时期的风采，深圳或许比美国任何地方都更能让你感受到那种氛围。
当中国效仿美国过去的成功经验时，美国政府却忙于削弱自身的优势。一个痴迷于程序的左派与一个不加思考、破坏性极强的右派沆瀣一气，试图限制……政府。无论是左派还是右派，都不允许国家提供公众所需的基本物资。拜登政府或许通过了具有里程碑意义的产业政策法案，但行政机构却过于关注程序问题，以至于在选民再次选举唐纳德·特朗普之前，几乎没有任何实际建设进展。而特朗普曾威胁要取消其中许多项目。美国仍然是一个超级大国，在许多方面都能够超越中国。但它也正深陷于一个效率低下的政府之中，民众越来越关注如何维护舒适的生活方式。
美国人曾经对中国所代表的巨大机遇充满向往。近一个世纪前，美中两国是战时盟友，文化交流和商业往来巩固了彼此间的紧密联系。如今，天然的友好关系正被相互的不信任所取代。北京和华盛顿在经济、科技和外交领域展开竞争，这给与两国都有联系的我们蒙上了一层阴影。2022年，北京的审查机构封锁了我发布年度信件的个人网站。防火长城通常会屏蔽像《纽约时报》这样的大型平台，而不是像我这样的小网站。那周，我不得不联系加拿大驻华总领事，询问是否需要安排离开中国的事宜。此前，加拿大逮捕了一位知名的中国女商人，北京随后拘留了两名加拿大人。许多曾经因商务或旅游前往中国的美国人，如今已失去了对中国之行的热情。
如今，中美两国彼此猜忌，甚至敌意弥漫。与中国一样，美国也拥有迅速行动和摧毁对手的能力，一旦感到威胁，便会在国内外施以极其残暴的手段。当今时代一个至关重要的问题是，中美之间的敌对情绪能否保持在可控范围内。因为一旦爆发，不仅会给彼此带来毁灭性的打击，还会给世界带来灾难。
我所知的防止双方紧张局势加剧的最佳应对措施是：两个超级大国之间的相互好奇心。美国人对中国了解得越多，反之亦然，我们就越有可能避免麻烦。两国之间最鲜明的对比在于将定义21世纪的竞争：美国精英阶层主要由律师组成，擅长阻挠；而中国技术官僚阶层主要由工程师组成，擅长建设。这正是本书的核心观点。现在是时候用新的视角来理解这两个超级大国了：中国是一个工程强国，以惊人的速度进行大规模建设，这与美国律师主导的社会形成鲜明对比，后者会竭尽所能地阻挠一切，无论好坏。
《飞速发展》讲述了中国政府如何以不择手段的方式，将人民带入现代化进程——这一壮举令世界许多国家艳羡不已——但这种做法也理应受到世界许多国家的谴责。本书也提醒我们，美国曾经也深谙速度与雄心勃勃的建设之道。《飞速发展》将带领读者穿梭于令人眼花缭乱的大都市和巨型工厂，揭示这个工程型国家令人瞩目的进步及其阴暗的一面。美国这个注重法律的社会也有值得中国借鉴之处。每个超级大国都为对方提供了改进的途径，前提是双方的领导人和人民愿意认真审视，而不仅仅是匆匆一瞥。
断头台
第一章 工程师与律师
硅谷有时真是个令人惊艳的乏味之地。旧金山南部的半岛拥有自然美景，连绵起伏的丘陵和迷人的海岸风光，但你很难透过密密麻麻的企业停车场看到这些美景。山景城和门洛帕克到处都是地毯店，这实在令人匪夷所思。所以，当我漫步在这些聚集着人工智能领军企业和全球一些最富有公司总部的城镇时，我常常会想：“这就是我们这个科技飞速发展的文明的中心吗？”
每次从加州飞往香港或上海，看到如此完善的基础设施，我几乎都会感到有些不安。从机场搭乘地铁（而不是优步）是迎接亚洲的绝佳方式。我会驻足片刻，细细品味干净明亮、列车每隔几分钟一班的车站，它们会把我送到充满活力的市中心商业区——而旧金山恰恰缺少这一点。湾区是美国最富裕州的经济引擎，但生活却常常让人感觉极其不正常。旧金山一直无法为无家可归者提供服务，甚至……许多富人不得不为他们极其昂贵的住宅配备发电机，因为政府无法保证电力供应。
湾区本身就是一个矛盾体：这个炙手可热的企业价值创造中心，却又被各种弊病所包围。这种矛盾正是本书探讨的主题。2017年我离开硅谷前往中国时，我清楚地意识到，过去四十年里，美国失去了一些珍贵的东西。当中国在构建未来时，美国却停滞不前，其创新大多局限于虚拟和金融领域。
观察这两个国家，我逐渐意识到二十世纪诸如资本主义、社会主义，或者最糟糕的新自由主义之类的标签是多么的不足。它们早已无法帮助我们理解这个世界，即便它们曾经能够做到。资本主义的美国通过繁琐的监管和税收政策干预自由市场，同时提供实质性的（尽管并不完美）再分配政策。社会主义的中国则拘留工会组织者，征收低税率，并提供一个漏洞百出的社会保障体系。共产党最厉害的伎俩就是伪装成左翼。当习近平和其他政治局委员高谈阔论马克思主义的陈词滥调时，国家却在推行一套令西方保守派垂涎三尺的右翼议程：提供有限的福利，设置重重移民壁垒，并强制推行传统的性别角色——男性必须强硬，女性必须生育子女。
中国是一个工程强国，它无法停止建设，这与美国这个善于诉讼的社会形成了鲜明对比，后者会竭尽所能地阻挠一切。
工程师们实际上主宰了现代中国。为了纠正毛泽东时代的混乱局面，邓小平在20世纪80年代和90年代大力提拔工程师进入中国政府高层。到2002年，中共中央政治局常委——中共最高权力机构——的九名成员全部接受过工程师培训。中央总书记胡锦涛学习的是水利工程，他花了十年时间修建水坝。他的其他八位同事本可以经营一家苏联重工业集团：他们毕业于北京钢铁学院和哈尔滨工业大学等院校，主修电子管工程和热能工程，并在第一机械制造部和上海人造板机械厂积累了工作经验。
习近平毕业于中国顶尖理工大学清华大学，主修化学工程。在他2022年开始的第三个中共中央总书记任期内，习近平将来自航天部和武器部的高管安插进了政治局。这在美国就好比波音公司的首席执行官成了阿拉斯加州州长，洛克希德·马丁公司的总裁成了能源部长，而美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的局长成了佐治亚州这样大州的州长。中国的统治精英拥有管理大型项目的实践经验，这表明中国比以往任何时候都更加重视工程师，并将国防置于优先地位。
工程师喜欢做什么？建造。自古以来，帝王就试图驯服奔腾不息的河流，这些河流不仅吞噬农田，也冲毁了皇室的统治。在现代，新的公共工程——道路、桥梁、隧道、水坝、发电厂、整座新城——是工程型国家解决各种难题的方案。自1980年邓小平改革开放以来，中国修建的高速公路总长度是美国的两倍，高速铁路网的规模是日本的二十倍，太阳能和风能发电装机容量几乎与世界其他国家加起来的总和相当。不仅政府热衷于生产，企业界也充斥着过度活跃的生产者。粗略估计，几乎所有制成品，无论是结构钢、集装箱船、太阳能光伏板还是其他任何产品，中国都生产了三分之一到一半的产量。
当中国人指着那些夜晚因无人机表演而熠熠生辉的新城市，或是由闪闪发光的……连接在一起的大都市时高速铁路网，他们的骄傲并非虚言。你可以称之为行动宣传，但要想给十亿多人口留下深刻印象，浇筑大量混凝土不失为一个好办法。
相比之下，美国的政府由律师组成，由律师执政，也为律师服务。过去十位总统中有五位毕业于法学院。每年，至少有一半的美国国会议员拥有法学学位，而拥有科学或工程学位的议员寥寥无几。从1984年到2020年，每一位民主党总统和副总统候选人都毕业于法学院，但他们也占据了共和党精英和公务员队伍的高层。相比之下，只有两位美国总统曾从事工程工作：一位是靠采矿发家的赫伯特·胡佛，另一位是曾在核潜艇上担任工程官的吉米·卡特。胡佛和卡特因诸多事迹而为人所铭记，尤其以他们糟糕的政治嗅觉而臭名昭著，最终导致惨败。
律师们拥有众多手段来拖延或阻止建设。从一个律师主导的社会过渡到一个工程主导的社会，你不仅能感受到其中的差异：你甚至会漫步、行走、徜徉于其工程之上。美国人不再擅长制造业，也无法按时完成公共工程建设。美国的基建设施日渐衰败，而中国却在建设全新的地铁、桥梁和高速公路系统。过去三十年，中国制造业蓬勃发展……相比之下，美国汽车制造商和芯片制造商的表现却乏善可陈。中国的政治体制旨在推进大型项目，以至于哪怕最轻微的经济波动都足以促使北京宣布一项庞大的新公共工程计划。这也是为什么在过去几年里，“住房危机”一词既指中国房价暴跌，也指美国人日益难以负担的住房问题。
律师对硅谷的成功起到了推波助澜的作用。你不能这样说。律师们打造了价值数万亿美元的公司，却缺乏法律保护。但律师也是造成旧金山湾区乃至全美大部分地区住房和公共交通匮乏的原因之一。美国曾经像中国一样，是一个工程强国。但在20世纪60年代，精英律师的关注点发生了急剧转变。随着美国民众对经济增长带来的种种弊端——环境破坏、过度修建高速公路、企业利益凌驾于公共利益之上——日益感到担忧，律师们的重心转向了诉讼和监管。他们的使命变成了尽可能地阻止一切事物的发生。
当美国对工程师的热情逐渐消退时，中国却在各个方面都拥抱了工程技术。中国的领导人不仅仅是土木工程师或电气工程师，从根本上说，他们是社会工程师。古代帝王毫不犹豫地彻底重塑人与土地的关系，下令大规模迁徙到新开辟的领土，并征召民众修建长城或大运河。现代的统治者也同样如此，他们的雄心壮志远胜于过去的帝王。苏联激发了许多北京领导人对重工业的热爱，以及成为“灵魂工程师”的热情——这句斯大林的名言也被习近平引用——从而推动中国人民迈向现代化，甚至超越了现代化。
现代中国拥有多种社会控制手段。在人们的记忆中，大多数中国居民都生活在单位（或称“单位”）内，单位控制着人们获取大米、肉类、食用油和自行车等生活必需品的途径。许多人至今仍受制于户口制度，其目的是通过将教育和医疗福利限制在原籍地，阻止农村居民在城市定居。对于少数民族宗教群体而言，控制更为严苛：藏人被完全禁止崇拜达赖喇嘛，超过一百万维吾尔人曾被关押在拘留营中，试图将中国价值观融入他们的穆斯林信仰。
工程领域的决策者有时会过于拘泥于字面意思。有时候，感觉中国的领导层就像一群水利工程师，他们把经济和社会看作是液体流动，仿佛所有的人类活动——从大规模生产到人口再生产——都可以像转动一系列阀门一样轻松地进行引导、限制、增加或阻止。
政府效率过高会不会适得其反？在中国的六年经历让我明白，答案是肯定的，尤其当政府不受公民意见约束时。一个如此轻视民众、仓促决策的体制，其自身存在诸多局限性。本书揭示了工程型国家的一些优点：例如，城市运转高效、制造业基础雄厚，以及物质利益惠及社会各界。但我也亲身经历了其他国家绝不会尝试的事情，比如坚持“零新冠”战略，直至国家陷入疯狂。工程型国家的基本原则是将人视为群体而非个体。中国共产党自诩为统帅，协调国家和社会各界的统一行动，能够发动民众难以理解的战略行动。其理念是最大限度地扩大国家权力，最大限度地限制个人权利。
工程师常常把社会问题当作数学题来处理。国家人口是否过多？北京的解决方案是禁止家庭生育超过一个孩子——这是我第四章的主题——通过大规模绝育和堕胎运动来实现，这是中央政府在1980年下令的。新冠病毒传播速度是否过快？建造新医院的速度确实惊人，但同时也要像武汉、西安和上海那样，在几周内将数百万人限制在家中，这我在第五章中有所论述。对于“零新冠”或独生子女政策的目的，人们并没有任何疑问：数字就体现在名称中。
中国经济也未能免受工程技术的影响。2021年，北京对房地产开发商的债务水平感到不安，政府迫使许多开发商陷入困境，引发了购房者信心的长期低迷。几乎在同一时期，习近平对中国一些发展迅猛的科技公司，包括中国最大的网约车公司滴滴出行和中国最知名的企业家马云旗下的支付公司蚂蚁金服，发起了一系列监管改革。中国科技公司的创始人（以及他们的投资者）震惊地发现，习近平在短短几个月内就能让这些公司的估值蒸发万亿美元。领导层认为，将国家的科技发展重点从消费平台转向半导体和航空等服务于国家战略需求的科技产业是轻而易举的事。然而，北京花了数年时间才意识到，这些举措给企业家和投资者带来了多么巨大的恐慌。
在中国旅行，你会惊叹于过去四十年间工程技术所取得的巨大成就。然而，还有一些你看不见的部分。尽管中国的铁路和桥梁令人叹为观止，但它们背负着巨额债务，拖累了整体经济增长。制造业生产的商品数量庞大，以至于中国的贸易伙伴如今开始抱怨需要保护主义。被称为“独生子女政策”的社会工程实验加速了中国的人口下降。如果北京没有引发房地产行业的崩盘，没有扼杀许多最具活力的企业，也没有坚持不懈地试图遏制新冠病毒的传播，中国的经济状况会更好。
那些自认为在金融或消费互联网行业工作稳定的富裕专业人士，在习近平对这些行业的不满引发连锁失业潮后，遭遇了当头棒喝。没有哪位美国总统拥有如此大的权力来颠覆富人的生活。相比之下，在中国，当北京方面的风向转变时，社会的许多支柱都可能动摇，这加剧了人们的不安全感。即使在国家精英阶层中也是如此。由于中国的法律保护力度不足，即使是富人也无法得到充分的保护。
工程师们会全力以赴地朝着一个方向前进，如果他们发现某个方向行不通，会毫不犹豫地转向另一个方向。他们不会受到那些人道主义者的批评。中国的变革之所以如此剧烈，是因为只有极少数人的声音能够参与政治进程。粗略地说，由24人组成的政治局（共产党最高权力机构，通常简称政治局）是唯一被允许参与政治的人。一旦他们确定了战略问题，剩下的唯一任务就是由官僚机构来处理细节。但一旦官僚机构犯错，就可能将几乎全体民众拖入危机之中。
为了捕捉工程国家的创伤性方面及其产生巨大自豪感的能力，我喜欢提出一个假设性问题：在现代中国，出生在哪一年是最糟糕的？
我认为，1949年——毛泽东创立中华人民共和国的那一年——是一个强有力的竞争者。一个出生于那一年的人——我们姑且称她为卢——将亲历中国一系列乌托邦式的实验，这些实验最终都演变成了国家主导的恐怖运动。卢出生在一个饱受日本侵略和内战蹂躏的国家，但她仍然对毛泽东的共产主义承诺抱有希望。大约十岁时，卢经历了一定程度的粮食短缺，因为她亲身经历了毛泽东为快速实现工业化而制定的计划。这就是所谓的“大跃进”，数千万人死于农业集体化、伪科学的农艺、自然灾害以及毛泽东下令熔化家用工具以获取金属，所有这些最终导致了大规模的饥荒，迫使人们靠捡拾树皮来维持生存。十八岁时，卢可能错过了上大学的机会，因为毛泽东关闭了高等教育。“反抗是正当的，”他在发动文化大革命时对学生们这样说道。 “轰炸总部，”他一边命令年轻人前往农村，一边这样指示他们。
如果卢女士决定在三十岁以后生孩子，她会她们都遭遇了独生子女政策的冲击。据官方统计，在独生子女政策实施的三十五年间，中国的堕胎数量几乎与美国目前的人口总数相当。如果卢女士在二十岁时生育，她的孩子或许能在1989年上大学。那年春夏，学生们在全国各地发起抗议活动，其中以北京最为引人注目。到了六月，邓小平宣布戒严，并调动军队镇压了中国顶尖高校的学生。天安门事件几年后，中国的经济真正开始腾飞。但当卢女士年届七十，步入晚年之际，她将感受到国家主导的恐怖运动的最后一次冲击：为了实现新冠清零而实施的封锁。如果卢女士居住在疫情严重的城市，她可能连续数周都无法离开住所。
但只要将出生年份改变十年，结果就可能发生翻天覆地的变化。
1959年出生的人不会记得饥荒。我们姑且称这位幸运儿为姚。在他十八岁时，毛泽东已经去世，姚或许正值邓小平重启教育之际，考入大学。四十岁时，正值事业的黄金时期，他可能已经创立了一家企业，并在中国加入世界贸易组织后从中获利。同样在那时，如果他是城市居民，姚还能赶上中国的住房私有化浪潮。随着国家逐步瓦解社会主义，政府以极低的价格向城市工人出售住房。这是历史上规模最大的财富转移之一：如果姚是北京和上海——这两个后来发展成为世界上最昂贵城市之一——的房地产精英之一，他本可以成为巨富。
并非所有1949年出生的人都饱受苦难，也并非所有1959年出生的人都过着舒适的生活。但工程国家的特点是节奏异常不规律，出生的年代可能决定一个人是一夜暴富还是命丧黄泉。
2000后一代中国人正处于某种程度上介于这两种极端之间。近年来，大学毕业生面临着创纪录的青年失业率，而他们的父母则在为不断下跌的房价而苦恼。对于一群被称为“小粉红”的线上民族主义者来说，中国似乎势不可挡。他们认为，房地产市场的崩盘是好事，也是必要的，因为投资正在流入制造业。他们还说，如果中国整体经济疲软，那也是美国造成的。
第二个论点简直荒谬。没错，关税和技术管制确实损害了中国企业。但与中共中央政治局的休克疗法相比，美国政府对中国经济造成的损害又算得了什么呢？只有在中国高度审查的信息环境下，人们才会相信美国能够阻碍中国的发展。
但这些小粉红分子有一套说辞让我觉得好笑。“看看那些美国人，”有些人说，“他们既没有像我们一样的高铁，也没有闪闪发光的摩天大楼。他们唯一的本事就是自缚手脚，现在他们正在对我们这么做。” 小粉红分子说美国有能力搞垮中国经济是错的；但他们说美国自缚手脚倒没错。
2008年，加州和中国的发展速度形成了鲜明的对比。那一年，加州选民投票通过了一项州提案，为旧金山和洛杉矶之间的高速铁路建设提供资金；同年，中国也开始建设北京至上海的高铁线路。这两条线路建成后，总长度都将达到约800英里。
中国于2011年开通了京沪轻轨，耗资360亿美元。运营十年间，该线路累计运送旅客13.5亿人次。加州在公投提案通过17年后，终于建成了一小段连接中央谷地两座城市的铁路，而这两座城市都远离旧金山和洛杉矶。
加州铁路项目的最新预算估计为1280亿美元。为什么？造价如此高昂？部分原因是某些政客要求高铁在其选区增设站点，迫使线路绕道穿越更多山脉，路线更加曲折。部分原因则是加州铁路管理局更愿意宣传其创造的高薪就业岗位数量，而非实际铺设的铁轨长度。据官方估计，加州高铁首段将于2030年至2033年间投入运营。这意味着，加州高铁部分路段何时开通的预测误差范围，与中国修建京沪高铁整条线路所用的时间相当。
美国并非一直如此。过去，美国的市长和州长们热衷于参加剪彩仪式。如今，这样的仪式已寥寥无几。美国城市普遍未能建造足够的住房或基础设施。即便建成了公共厕所、公交车站，甚至是地铁站，也总是严重延误或超支，令人尴尬。如今的美国人生活在工业文明的废墟之中，其基础设施勉强维持，鲜有扩建。
从前，美国也曾拥有工程强国的雄厚实力，在全国各地建造了宏伟的工程：绵延的铁路、壮丽的桥梁、美丽的城市、威力惊人的战争武器，以及登月计划。乔治·华盛顿是一位将军，他是众多重视建设的国家安全人士中的第一位。年轻的陆军军官德怀特·艾森豪威尔曾花了两个月的时间，在崎岖不平的道路上，从东海岸一路颠簸地横穿美国。担任总统期间，他修建了州际公路系统。19世纪，随着美国人口和经济的飞速增长，政治精英们一致认为，其广袤的领土需要运河、铁路和公路。进步时代的一些领军人物拥抱社会工程——他们进行了大量的优生学实验来证明这一点。
今天的中国与一个世纪前的美国颇为相似，而它正逐渐展现出超级大国的实力。但20世纪60年代后，美国的建设热潮开始放缓。接下来发生了什么？律师们介入了。
20世纪60年代，美国部分地区已沦为一片令人恐惧之地。石油平台向海洋排放石油，城市上空笼罩着恶臭的烟雾，工厂泄漏的化学物质甚至能引发河流燃烧。城市规划者强行修建高速公路，穿过居民区。法律歧视导致种族隔离，剥夺了人们的投票权。公众对美国技术官僚和工程师的普遍顺从感到厌恶：城市规划者（他们拆毁了整个社区）、国防官员（他们发动了越南战争）以及行业监管机构（他们与企业勾结）。
精英法学院的学生们，尤其是耶鲁和哈佛的学生们，纷纷行动起来。他们成立了环保组织，高喊着“起诉这些混蛋！ ”（指政府机构）的口号。在整个20世纪70年代，美国左右两派都齐心协力地限制政府的效率。像拉尔夫·纳德这样的自由派活动家自诩为政府的监督者，不断提起诉讼。罗纳德·里根则以一句“政府是问题所在，而不是解决方案”回击道：“政府是问题所在，而不是解决方案。”律师社会的兴起，是对20世纪60年代美国诸多问题的必要纠正。不幸的是，它如今却成为了许多美国问题的根源。
作为耶鲁大学法学院蔡保罗中国研究中心的访问学者，我得以从法律界的“殿堂”之一——法学院内部——观察这个群体。我结识的法学生聪明、友善，最重要的是，他们雄心勃勃。他们善于攀登权力阶梯——在校期间加入法律评论委员会，毕业后担任联邦法官的助理。耶鲁法学院的学生大多倾向于左翼，但其中也不乏保守派。例如，JD Vance 就是个很好的例子。尽管法学生的政治观点可能会出现意想不到的转变，但我们应该……要记住，它们都与个人抱负这一支柱紧密相连。
在美国，律师比任何其他群体都更被赋予了“通才”的特权，可以随意涉足任何他们感兴趣的知识领域。“美国贵族，”亚历克西·德·托克维尔写道，“并非由富人组成……而是占据了法官席和律师席。”自托克维尔1833年写下这些话以来，律师的权力变得更加强大。近几十年来，律师甚至在经济政策制定方面也能够压制经济学家。拜登政府的许多官员都毕业于耶鲁法学院，他们不屑于遵循“看不见的手”的逻辑。相反，他们卷起袖子，逐个案例地对美国经济进行“手术”，为一家公司设计补贴方案，或对另一家公司提起反垄断诉讼。律师制造了如此多的复杂问题，以至于从医疗保健、住房到银行业等各个领域的规则都变得令人费解。
美国法庭已成为解决政治问题的战场，法官们被委以重任，裁决那些大多数国家留给选民或监管机构处理的问题。当政治诉求无法通过选举实现时，律师有时会寻求通过诉讼来取得胜利。自20世纪中叶以来，美国左翼奉行“诉讼民主”策略，而保守派也展现出他们在这方面毫不逊色。
律师在美国社会拥有举足轻重的地位，这并非没有道理。例如，他们是鸡尾酒会上可靠的谈话对象——远胜于工程师或经济学家。更重要的是，他们有助于维护美国的公民意识和对法律的恪守。许多律师从事着重要的工作：协助民众获得破产、离婚或移民服务；帮助保障公民权利；以及致力于保护野生动物和清洁水源。当白宫的行为越轨时，我们希望司法部门能够予以制止。
虽然律师社会纠正了过去的问题，但它也产生了两种削弱当今美国的弊病。
首先，过程重于结果。在美国政府和社会中，制定新规和成立委员会常常取代了对战略和目标的深入思考。
工程师构想桥梁，律师构想程序。密歇根大学法学教授尼古拉斯·巴格利在其开创性论文《程序迷恋》中阐述了联邦政府如何要求机构“进行所有可能的调查研究，讨论所有可能的方案，与所有可识别的利益相关者进行沟通，并在其任何行动（无论多么微不足道）生效之前，经受最严格的司法审查”。在律师主导的社会中，更严谨的程序是解决各种难题的良方。为了应对新问题，他们会设计另一套程序，这通常意味着更长的官僚审议、更广泛的公众讨论和更深入的司法审查。
律师在法律上的权力远大于其创造权力，他们更倾向于阻止某些事情的发生。政府机构在建设任何东西之前——从简单的自行车道到更复杂的加州高铁项目——都会被繁琐的程序束缚。机构必须满足如此多的要求，因为他们知道，如果民众能够说服法官，认为政府机构在环境问题上研究得不够深入，那么一场诉讼就可能让自行车道项目胎死腹中。经过详尽的研究和审查，最终建成的项目寥寥无几也就不足为奇了。美国民众面对的是破败的基础设施、稀少的新建项目，以及一种根深蒂固的无力感。
问题不仅仅在于政府。美国的问题在于律师泛滥的社会。美国在西方国家中律师数量之多实属罕见：每十万人拥有四百名律师，是欧洲国家平均水平的三倍。由于律师无处不在，程序主义也随之盛行。这种情况无处不在，包括大学和企业。如今在这些机构工作的人都会发现，流程本身变成了目的，人们沉迷于流程的逻辑而忽略了结果。毕竟，在第七次月度委员会会议之后，谁还能牢记目标呢？
律师群体面临的另一个问题是系统性地偏袒富人。律师常常沦为富人的仆人。他们帮助富有的房主阻挠建筑项目或巧妙地避税。知识产权案件的进展有时令人费解，其中许多案件似乎成了专为律师设计的刺激游戏。美国法官不得不处理各种令人困惑的纠纷，例如对冲基金追讨主权政府的债务。诉讼为解决纠纷提供了无穷无尽的诱人机会。而那些动机强烈的当事人也愿意为超级律师支付高额费用。律师不仅仅是富人的辩护人；他们中的许多人本身就是富人。《华尔街日报》2023年的一篇标题为“如今华尔街律师的收入超过了银行家”的文章，以及《纽约时报》 2024年的一篇题为“律师的收入如此之高，以至于人们将其与NBA相提并论”的文章。
美国的社会弊病并非富人的障碍。纽约市的公共交通系统几乎无法扩建，房地产开发商却能为富人建造高耸入云的摩天大楼。加州无法控制野火，富人却能负担得起私人消防服务。真正饱受社会弊端之苦的，是那些被申请食品券（SNAP）的繁琐文件压得喘不过气来、不得不乘坐破旧公共交通工具、最需要新建住房的穷人。
我并非像莎士比亚《亨利六世》第二部中屠夫迪克所讽刺的那样，主张“我们做的第一件事就是杀光所有律师”。权力制衡体系过去是、现在仍然是美国成功的基石。因为政府有能力……面对如此可怕的权力，法官和法律往往是防止滥用权力的最后也是最好的希望。但如果美国主要迎合富人，它将无法继续保持强国地位。美国未能充分建设民众，损害了劳动人民的利益，也使这个国家感觉像是一个缺乏自主权的社会。
工程型国家不仅仅是专制政体或技术官僚式的现代化国家。中国在经济增长与政治控制的结合方面，比历史上任何其他威权国家都做得更好。共产党不懈地打破根深蒂固的利益集团，部分原因是防止富人攫取政治权力，部分原因是将物质利益惠及全国。中国的崛起表明，即使在制度安排不够完善的情况下，一个国家只要培养大量工程师并让他们发挥作用，就能变得强大。正如三位经济学家在1991年发表的一篇论文中所述：“我们的证据表明，工程专业大学毕业生比例较高的国家经济增长更快；而法律专业毕业生比例较高的国家经济增长较慢。”尽管中国在保障产权方面摇摆不定，但工程师是中国经济飞速发展的重要原因之一。工程师的思维方式也是中国在经历文化大革命等危机后，最终实现经济增长奇迹的原因之一。
律师社会并没有发生如此剧烈的转变。它由民主、多元主义、否决权以及更多要素构成。律师社会还包含对程序主义和财富保护的承诺。经济方面，美国相对于其他西方国家经历了强劲的经济增长，同时企业价值创造也取得了惊人的成功。但在政治方面，这种对过程而非结果的执着，使美国民众对政府能够切实改善他们的生活失去了信心。我希望美国政府能够重新赢得这种信任。为此，它需要重拾一些工程技术能力，并……在其统治精英阶层中，非法律人士也应有一席之地。这需要美国重新开始建设，创造一种势头，并唤起许多中国人在过去二十年中感受到的对未来的乐观情绪。
我们必须更深入了解美国和中国的原因，并非因为它们本身是引人入胜的智力谜题，而是因为这两个超级大国正不安地相互试探，调整各自的经济和国家安全体系，为冲突做好准备。
随着中美两国竞争与冲突的加剧，我们需要一些新的视角——使用并非源自政治学教科书的生僻词汇——来思考两国的运作方式及其弊端。“工程型国家”和“法律型社会”并非理解两国关系的唯一途径；当然，“专制”或“资本主义”等传统标签仍然具有一定的参考价值。我希望能够创造性地、甚至巧妙地运用这些词汇，以期激发两国之间的相互好奇心。
美国相对于中国拥有巨大的优势：强劲的经济增长、不断增长且日益年轻的人口、数字技术的创新、更广泛的联盟网络等等。但我们必须认识到，工程技术型国家拥有巨大的优势：中国具备强大的建设能力。如果两国在世界末日般的场景中决定开战，这一点将至关重要。任何军队都无法仅靠人工智能驱动；它需要无人机和弹药。而工程技术型国家更有能力大规模生产这些物资。
过去十年，美国在科技领域动用了法律力量。特朗普第一任期内将数十家中国科技公司列入黑名单。拜登政府时期，国家安全委员会和商务部充斥着顶尖法学院的毕业生，包括其所在部门的法学博士。律师们精心设计了错综复杂的技术管控网络，将中国芯片制造商、电信公司以及任何希望部署人工智能的企业都困在其中。然而，这些法律管控非但没有阻止中国科技领军企业的发展，反而激起了他们的斗志。2022年习近平开始他的第三个任期时，他并没有在政治局安插精明强干、能够有力反驳这些法律的律师，而是选择了科学家和工程师。他们将参与制定“十五五”规划，该规划将更加重视科技实力建设。
一条思维僵化的巨龙和一群只会纸上谈兵的律师之间的较量，注定不会是一场公平的战斗。这场斗争远比这复杂得多。最终谁能胜出，不仅取决于体能或科技实力，更取决于治理——哪个国家能在未来一个世纪更好地管理自身事务。
依我看来，美国和中国都在竞相削弱自身的治理能力。习近平强行将政治决策中心置于自身，表明他打算随心所欲地统治共产党。与此同时，美国政府却深陷低效泥潭。几十年来，美国右翼密谋将政府拖入泥潭，而左翼则用各种规章制度和诉讼扼杀它。左翼几乎没有展现出改革摇摇欲坠的体制的决心，而特朗普第二任期政府的行为却仿佛必须摧毁政府才能拯救它。
但每个人都有希望。中美两国最重要的共同点是对转型的坚定承诺。中国由列宁主义政党领导，其核心目标是动员社会走向现代化。中国的宣传机构开展集中式的鼓舞人心的运动，以实现到2049年建成“社会主义现代化国家”和“中华民族伟大复兴”的百年目标。美国的承诺则更为开放，也更具内在性。为了让民主制度继续下去，我们必须进行这项实验。虽然这项实验已经部分变形，但我们应该重拾民有、民治、民享的政府这一梦想，它绝不会消亡。
我对加州的治理方式并不满意。但我想坦白，加州人的一种态度我完全认同：我对未来充满乐观，相信两国社会都能朝着更好的方向发展。两国都处于变革之中，这意味着这两个超级大国都有可能摆脱目前糟糕的发展轨迹。
如果美国人深入了解中国，就会发现它昔日辉煌的影子。如今，中国正致力于打造自己的“伟大社会”，即使是最贫困的省份也展现出令人瞩目的活力。民众的积极参与是中国民众对政府支持度依然很高的原因之一。我亲眼见证了这一点，当时我花了五天时间，在贵州崎岖的山路上奋力骑行。
第二章 宏伟建筑
我对工程国家的印象最深刻的一次体验，很符合中国传统，发生在骑自行车的时候。
2021年夏天，我和两个朋友深入中国西南地区旅行。五天时间里，我们骑行了近400英里，穿越贵州省，最终抵达重庆市。我没有骑“飞鸽”（Flying Pigeon）——那种舒适但只有黑色的毛泽东时代单速自行车——而是骑着一辆捷安特（Giant）公路自行车，它动力强劲，速度飞快。
正是在这段漫长的旅程中，我开始意识到，审视中国的问题，会让我们更加清晰地认识到美国的问题。每次离开北京和上海，深入中国偏远地区，我都会惊讶地发现，即使是中国最贫困的省份，其基础设施也比美国最富裕的省份要好。这种“工程型国家”的主要特征是建设大型公共工程，无论耗费多少资金或人力。对于贵州的许多人来说，这激发了他们对物质环境变化的渴望和热情，而这种热情和热情在当今的美国人中并不常见。
贵州的地貌以山峦为主，这些山峰由喀斯特地貌构成，错综复杂。即使在十年前，骑自行车穿越贵州（发音为“贵州”）也可能是件鲁莽的事。当时那里几乎没有像样的道路。贵州是中国第四贫困的省份，远离繁荣的沿海地区——正如人们常说的，“三尺之内没有一寸平坦，三天之内没有一日不下雨，家家户户没有三枚银币”。
十九世纪，清朝皇帝派往贵州南部绘制地图的一位皇家制图师，因工作繁杂而感到十分恼火。“贵州南部山峰密密麻麻，杂乱无章，”他抱怨道，“数量众多，杂乱无章。” 来访者也并非总能感受到当地人的热情好客。贵州大部分地区居住着苗族，历史上苗族一直对汉族的涌入抱有抵触情绪。
贵州的与世隔绝和神秘莫测，充满了传奇色彩。一位九世纪的旅行家曾记录下他的奇遇：他在游历贵州时，偶然发现了一座雅致的寺院。十位尼姑立刻出现，热情地邀请他进入她们的茅屋。她们热情好客，用干果款待他。旅行家觉得这景象太过奇幻，便不顾尼姑们的惊愕，匆匆离去。回到船上后，船员们证实了他的担忧：这些尼姑其实是猴子骗子，她们有时会化作人形引诱人们进入她们的住处。
进入21世纪，中央政府对贵州给予了极大的关注。贵州多位党政领导人后来都进入了北京担任要职，其中包括习近平之前的中共中央总书记胡锦涛。在中国，领导人通常需要先在一个贫困省份执政，才能晋升到国家政治的顶峰。这就像在美国，政客们必须先在“铁锈地带”或煤炭产区积累一些经验，才能有机会进入内阁一样。贵州获得了多个大型项目。中央政府贵州省偏远地区建造了世界上最大的射电望远镜——“天眼”，其口径达五百米。生产茅台白酒（一种用高粱酿造的烈酒）的国有酒厂，发展成为中国市值最高的公司之一。其省会贵阳市如今拥有中国几座最大的数据中心。
我和朋友克里斯蒂安·谢泼德（当时是英国《金融时报》的记者）以及滕宝（在佛罗里达长大，后来在上海创办了一家科技公司）一起去了贵阳。一个世纪前，从上海到贵阳需要沿着蜿蜒曲折的道路走上好几周。而我和我的朋友们，只用了七个小时的高铁就到了。
贵州是最后几个接入国家高铁网络的省份之一。2016年高铁首站开通时，工程师们终于破山开凿隧道，并架设了足够多的坚固桥梁跨越峡谷。在火车上，克里斯蒂安、滕和我舒适地斜倚在座椅上，把拆卸好的自行车放在车厢后部，需要什么就从乘务员的推车上拿些零食或水。我们望向窗外，偶尔模糊的隧道轮廓暗示着这项工程的艰辛。
克里斯蒂安是个很棒的骑行者。我和滕则热情高涨，但经验不足。我们三人每人只带了一套换洗衣服、一个急救包、备用轮胎，除此之外就没带别的了。我们把装备塞进几个简洁的皮包里，绑在自行车后座上。然后我们就出发了。计划是每天傍晚前到达旅舍，在水槽里洗衣服，晾干，第二天再重复一遍。
每天的骑行都带来新的惊喜：壮丽的景色、不断超越前一天的桥梁和峡谷，还有我们偶尔驻足欣赏的瀑布。我们的旅程很艰辛——不是因为遇到了无法通行的道路或狡猾的猴子，而是因为……一天的行程需要奋力向上攀登。贵州的基础设施简直是骑行者的天堂。旅程的第一天，我们沿着一条刚刚建成、尚未通车的公路骑行。那是我们最喜欢的时刻：在云雾缭绕、郁郁葱葱的青山间，以惊人的速度飞驰而下。
这次骑行是我人生中最耗费体力的一次，也是最令人难忘的一次。我们不仅欣赏了沿途的风景，还品尝了美食。每隔几个小时，我们就会在路边休息。骑自行车非常消耗体力，所以我们会点上一碗面条——舀上贵州菜里那些辛辣的泡菜，那种味道真是提神醒脑——然后再来一根香草冰淇淋，之后再骑上自行车继续前行。晚上，我们点了当地特色菜：酸辣鱼汤、红烧羊肉、当地香草根茎沙拉，还有炸芝麻饭团（每个都像青柠那么大），配上咸香的泡菜。
如果清朝的地图绘制者能看到如今的贵州该有多好。乡村地区已经建起了各种各样的新基础设施。第三天，我们遇到了一幕几乎像猴子出没的幻境一样奇特的景象。滕走在前面，我们三人正走着，他突然喊道：“吉他！”我抬头一看，只见路灯上挂着巨大的吉他装饰。远处，我看到一座小山，山顶上耸立着一把巨大的摇滚吉他。原来，我们正骑行在自诩为“世界吉他之都”的正安县。据官方媒体报道，全球每七把吉他中就有一把产自我们偶然路过的这个小镇。
这是工程型国家的另一个特点：制造中心遍布各地，经常生产你意想不到的产品。
贵州当地人或许和其他人一样，对拥有世界吉他之都感到惊讶。他们当中很少有人会弹吉他。正安之所以成为吉他中心，是因为许多当地居民为了工作搬到了沿海的广东，其中不少人碰巧在吉他工厂找到了工作。之后，当地政府也为此做了大量努力。为了吸引他们回流贵州，贵州政府推行了一项内陆发展政策。这项政策与2012年国务院（中央政府执行机构）的一项指示不谋而合，该指示鼓励制造业企业从沿海省份迁往内陆省份。该文件建议贵州发展航空航天或电动汽车制造等技术密集型产业。然而，贵州最终建设的产业却更符合其技术水平相对较低的实际情况：吉他文化产业园。
正安吉他并非世界顶级吉他制造商，其产品主要面向中低端市场。但随着本土品牌渴望获得国际认可，正安吉他制造商也在不断进步。其中一家正在尝试将竹子融入吉他制作工艺。许多制造商都力求以品质而非低价著称，我相信他们中的许多人最终都能实现这一目标。中国制造商在刀具、音响系统、电动汽车、消费级无人机等众多产品领域都获得了广泛认可，吉他为何不能呢？
在贵州骑行四天后，我们抵达了重庆市。这座城市的市中心围绕着长江和嘉陵江两条河流而建，高楼林立，拔地而起，构成了一幅壮丽的天际线。这些高楼仿佛层层叠叠，你可以从地面进入一栋楼，乘坐电梯直达十几层，然后再从地面出来。重庆是我最喜欢的中国城市，因为它拥有全国乃至全世界最令人叹为观止的城市景观。高速公路和桥梁穿梭于巨大的建筑之间，这些建筑仿佛是从山体中雕刻出来的，并通过楼梯、自动扶梯和人行道系统相互连接。这座城市充满了奇特的建筑设计，例如一条地铁线路就穿过一座建在山上的公寓楼。
重庆是二战期间中国的首都，当时称为重庆。蒋介石的国民党军队就聚集在那里。共产党人和美国将军约瑟夫·史迪威曾躲在山坡上开凿的防空隧道里，以躲避日军轰炸机。重庆的面积与奥地利相当，山峦也同样连绵起伏；人口却与德克萨斯州相当，而且同样喧闹嘈杂。在贵州乡村显得优雅的桥梁，在我们接近市区时，却变得异常庞大。重庆的一切都更大。它喧闹嘈杂，处处充满意想不到的景致，是一座熙熙攘攘的城市。重庆拥有《银翼杀手》般的视觉美学，是赛博朋克的化身——或者更确切地说，鉴于其河流众多，是水朋克的典范。
保护重庆免受日军轰炸的群山也形成了天然的热岛效应，使重庆成为中国“四大火炉”之一。颇为讽刺的是，当地人最爱的食物却是一锅用红辣椒、牛油和花椒熬制而成的火锅——这种火锅会在舌尖激起一阵阵酥麻的刺激感——人们会将切成薄片的肉和蔬菜蘸着吃。一些防空洞被改造成了火锅店，因为洞内凉爽的空气有助于人们更好地消化辛辣食物，所以很受欢迎。重庆市政府也正在计划将部分防空洞改造成艺术展览馆或酒窖。
克里斯蒂安、滕和我抵达重庆时都兴致勃勃。经过四天的骑行，穿梭于自然风光之中，突然置身于重庆壮丽的都市景观，感觉真是太棒了。夜幕降临，摩天大楼灯火辉煌，熠熠生辉。我们一边欣赏着日落，一边看着人们围坐在矮桌旁，桌中央摆放着热气腾腾的鲜红汤锅。
我几乎从不喝酒。我心想，如果真要找个机会喝一杯，那就应该是这次骑行结束的时候了。我们三人举杯冰镇啤酒碰杯，然后点了些辣到我耳朵都麻木的食物。在我们脚下，悠闲的游船在长江上缓缓行驶，其中几艘正驶向三峡大坝。第二天，我搭乘高铁返回上海上班。
事后我才开始意识到自己骑行经历的奇特之处。我穿越了一个贫困地区，而这个工程强国却投入了巨额资源对其进行现代化改造。贵州将美国一个世纪以来——从横贯大陆铁路到州际公路系统——的投资，压缩到了短短二十年内。
骑行游览贵州之后，我对“中国特色社会主义”这个词有了不同的理解。
中国在财富再分配方面做得很少，它奉行的是列宁主义路线，国家拥有巨大的自主权来支配经济资源，以维持政治控制并构建一个后稀缺的世界。通过考察贵州的发展，以及我想提请读者注意的其他几个地方的发展，我们就能真正理解这些“中国特色”的真正含义。
贵州建造了世界百大桥梁中的四十五座。它拥有十一座机场，另有三座正在建设中。贵州拥有五千英里的高速公路，按里程计算在中国各省中排名第四。此外，贵州还拥有约一千英里的高速铁路。贵州的基础设施并非仅仅由二十世纪的钢铁和混凝土构成。贵阳自诩为“大数据谷”，并宣称其凉爽的空气可以降低供暖成本。庞大的数据服务器设施也使贵州成为支撑人工智能发展的现代基础设施的典范。
我们和贵州当地人聊天时，他们对自家桥梁的自豪感胜过一切。我和朋友们骑车穿过架在深谷之上的桥梁。官方媒体宣称贵州已成为“桥梁博物馆”，其中一些桥梁正在努力开发成旅游景点：贵州第十高桥（全球第二十三高）拥有世界最高的蹦极跳台。每当工程师们建造一座桥梁，他们总会宣布两座城镇之间的旅行时间已从数小时缩短至几分钟。这为农村居民带来了真正的便利和联系。有些桥梁最初连接着荒芜之地，但几年后，它们便成为了重要的交通枢纽。
然而，在贵州令人惊叹的工程奇迹之下，却隐藏着许多深陷贫困的县。贵州人均收入仅为8000美元，与博茨瓦纳相当，比中国全国平均水平低40%，甚至不到北京、上海等富裕沿海城市的三分之一。有一天，克里斯蒂安感叹我们在贵州看到的劳动年龄人口寥寥无几：那些没有吉他制作工作的人大多已经迁往其他省份，留下年幼的孩子由祖父母照顾。2010年，贵州只有一半的儿童能够上高中——这是全国最低的入学率。新闻报道经常讲述孩子们不得不天不亮就起床，跋涉崎岖的山路，有的甚至需要借助绳梯才能到达学校的故事。
尽管地处偏远农村地区面临诸多挑战，但中国第四贫困的省份——贵州的家庭收入仅为纽约州的十五分之一——却拥有远超纽约州的基础设施：高速公路长度是纽约州的三倍，并拥有完善的高速铁路网络。而且，贵州并非中国特例。在全国范围内，这个“工程强国”一直在不遗余力地建设公共设施，因此，贵州与其说是偏离中国发展战略的例外，不如说是中国整体发展战略的一个极端案例。
现代中国一直处于建设热潮之中。这一热潮始于上世纪90年代经济开放之后，并在2008年中央政府批准大规模公共工程以应对全球金融危机时再次加速发展。
中国第一条省际高速公路于1993年通车，连接北京和邻近的港口城市天津。很快，高速公路就遍布各地。一个在中国第一条高速公路建成时出生的公民，到她到达……2011年，18岁是法定驾驶年龄，这意味着中国拥有比美国州际公路系统总长度还要长的高速公路系统。到2020年，中国又建成了第二批高速公路，总长度再次与美国高速公路系统持平。第一批高速公路耗时18年建成，第二批仅用了其一半的时间。
汽车迅速填满了这些道路。 1990年，全国汽车保有量为50万辆；到2024年，这一数字飙升至4.35亿辆，其中许多是电动汽车。中国不仅建造了汽车和高速公路，还建设了公共交通系统。2003年至2013年间，上海新增地铁线路长度相当于整个纽约市地铁系统的总和。到2025年，中国已有51个城市拥有地铁线路，其中11条线路的长度超过了纽约地铁。如今，中国的高速铁路网总长度超过了世界其他地区高速铁路网的总和，是西班牙和日本（分别位列世界第二和第三）高速铁路网长度的十倍。银色的流线型列车飞驰在高架桥上，画面赏心悦目，经常出现在广告牌和书籍封面上。该系统每年运送约20亿人次旅客。
中国政府热衷于展示大型集装箱船停靠在巨型起重机下，从密密麻麻的集装箱中吊装货物的画面。随着出口飙升，中国的港口成为世界上最繁忙的港口。仅上海港在2022年的集装箱吞吐量就超过了美国所有港口的总和。21世纪初，中国的出口引擎一度停滞不前，并非因为缺乏港口，而是因为广东电力短缺。因此，政府投资兴建了一系列新的发电厂，其中大部分是燃煤电厂。除了使用化石燃料外，中国每年还新增全球三分之一到一半的风能和太阳能发电装机容量。它将来自西部资源匮乏省份的可再生能源输送到东部工业化省份。
1957年，世界上第一座商业核电站在宾夕法尼亚州开始发电。1991年，中国第一座商业核电站开始发电。到2025年，中国的核电站数量赶上了美国：分别为55座和54座。尽管美国可能美国重启了几座已退役的反应堆，目前仅有一座在建。与此同时，中国正在建设31座核电站。美国21世纪建造的唯一一座核电站耗时15年，耗资300亿美元。2024年8月，中国核能管理部门批准建设11座新反应堆，预计总成本与美国核电站相当。
最重要的是，中国大力兴建住房。自1978年以来，中国城镇人口平均每年增长1600万人，这意味着，在过去的35年里，中国实际上每年都新建一座相当于纽约大都会区和波士顿大都会区总和的城市。尽管北京、上海和深圳的房价飞涨，但高水平的建设和不断上涨的工资普遍提高了住房的可负担性。从2007年到2018年，城镇公寓的平均价格从家庭平均收入的9倍下降到7倍。这种建设热潮消耗了巨量的钢铁、铝、铜、水泥和玻璃。据瓦茨拉夫·斯米尔称，中国在2018年至2019年间生产的44亿吨水泥，几乎相当于美国在整个20世纪的水泥产量。
这场建设热潮既是中国财富增长的原因，也是其结果。它直接刺激了经济活动：住宅、高速公路、地铁和发电厂的建设刺激了对材料和就业的需求，其影响远超施工现场本身。它也促进了中国的城镇化进程，将农村人口吸引到城市，而城市人口的生产力更高。在中国劳动力不断增长的关键时期，这些基础设施为中国以出口为导向的制造业战略奠定了基础。
中国的大部分繁荣发展都源于人民自身的努力，他们终于摆脱了毛泽东思想的束缚，追求更美好的生活。与此同时，国家大力建设公共工程也促进了国家更快的发展。由此可见，中国与印度、印度尼西亚等国截然不同。以及其他发展中国家，这些国家的经济增长较慢，部分原因是国家没有为公民建造足够的住房和基础设施。
中国在短短几十年内完成了美国一个多世纪的建设，但同时也吸收了许多自身的问题。
在中国，高速公路如同在美国一样，撕裂了太多城市。近年来，中国人对破坏国家物质文化遗产表现出极大的热情。文化大革命期间，毛泽东下令红卫兵洗劫佛寺、砸毁儒家雕像、亵渎祖先墓地，这种现象尤为突出。近几十年来，破坏不再局限于摧毁个别文化瑰宝，而是更加系统化，整个街区都沦为推土机的夷平之地。取而代之的是宽阔的大道和钢筋水泥的摩天大楼。遗憾的是，中国的新建筑很少注重魅力和美感。
工程建设是为了俯瞰全局。高速公路立交桥的几何造型、成排的太阳能光伏板，甚至在合适的灯光下，连冒着浓烟的化工厂，从高处远眺都能带来令人愉悦的视觉享受。然而，在地面上，城市环境并非总是宜居的。像北京和深圳这样的大城市规划混乱，缺乏大面积的步行区。穿过城市往往需要花费很长时间。
我更喜欢住在上海，那里很多街道仍然保持着人性化的尺度，而不是为汽车而建。我住的法租界至今绿树成荫，咖啡馆林立。上海非常适合步行，从市内众多的地铁站步行到目的地通常不超过十五分钟。上海承诺到2025年每年新建120个公园，届时全市绿地面积将达到1000个。这座拥有两千五百万人口的城市运转得非常出色。和东京一样，上海的商业也很繁荣，即使在地铁站里也能找到小巧的饺子店。上海拥有便捷的高铁交通网络，与周边城市——例如阿里巴巴等科技公司的总部所在地杭州，以及众多跨国公司设有制造工厂的苏州——紧密相连，而这些城市本身也是中国最成功的城市之一。
尽管中国已经接受了美国的汽车文化，但在上海骑自行车出行仍然非常方便。近年来，上海将一段江边改造成了一系列湿地公园，沿着一条长达15英里的自行车道蜿蜒而行。人们可以骑车穿过砖砌仓库和玻璃幕墙摩天大楼，感受上海与纽约的相似之处。我喜欢骑着我的捷安特自行车沿着江边骑行，飞驰而过世博会园区、梅赛德斯-奔驰文化中心、足以让驳船从桥下通过的高桥，以及各种保存完好的工业建筑。
大规模建设也有其好处。尽管贵州人民依然贫困，但我们在骑行途中遇到的村民告诉我们，他们对新建的桥梁和火车感到无比兴奋。对于经历了每年10%经济增长率的中国人来说，这感觉就像他们的国家大约每七年就重生一次。（按照这样的增长率，经济翻一番需要七年时间。）这意味着更好的汽车、更多的地铁线路、更干净的街道、更多的公园，以及其他数不胜数的改善。
美国过去曾投入巨资用于贫困地区的现代化建设。如今，美国人很少再对大型建设项目感到兴奋，部分原因是这些项目往往与环境破坏联系在一起，部分原因是它们工期漫长，还有部分原因是这类项目太过罕见，以至于人们已经忘记了它们能给人们的生活带来多大的改善。
美国人似乎已经无法体会到，充满活力的自然环境能够带来进步感。生活在德克萨斯州的人们，亚利桑那州和南部各州或许能体会到这种感受，因为它们建造了新的天际线和大量的新住宅。但在东北部和加利福尼亚州的大城市里，人们的默认态度是墨守成规。零星的新建筑，或许是新开的可爱商店或咖啡馆，又或许是造价超过百万美元的厕所——这些总体上并不能激发人们对实体变化的渴望。
这种感觉加剧了美国人对中国的盲点。无法体会物质进步带来的好处的人，也无法理解这些进步如何带来自豪感和满足感。中国的转型为人们带来了自来水和厕所、公共交通和高速公路、美丽的公园和现代化的购物中心。大多数人只能回忆起不久前他们还无法享受这些便利设施的时光。这种增长趋势至关重要。鳞次栉比的摩天大楼和铁路构成了共产党执政合法性的核心支柱。尽管在习近平的领导下，中国的增长速度已大幅放缓，但人们仍然对未来抱有希望。基础设施的改善让人们感受到，进步的浪潮仍在全国各地涌动。
2008年北京启动高铁建设时，批评人士指责当时一个贫穷的国家贸然建设这种即使对许多富裕国家来说也遥不可及的豪华基础设施，实属愚蠢。“基础设施投资对一个国家的发展水平来说可能过高，”经济学家迈克尔·佩蒂斯曾这样总结道，这并非个例。但当时中国的铁路交通极其拥挤，客运列车与货运列车共用同一条轨道，导致延误不断。而这条快速专用的客运铁路网的建成，则彻底缓解了所有线路的拥堵状况。
世界银行2019年的一项研究发现，中国的高铁系统在经济上是可行的，票价收入能够收回成本。中国之所以能够以较低的成本建设高铁，是因为其拥有标准化的设计和卓越的项目管理。在中国建设一条高铁线路的平均成本为……中国高铁每英里造价约为3300万美元，比欧洲便宜40%，比加州高铁便宜80%（加州高铁造价已飙升至每英里1.92亿美元）。世界银行指出，从更广阔的视角来看，中国高铁带来的益处远不止票务收入，还包括节省乘客时间、促进知识和商业交流、减少交通事故和交通拥堵以及降低碳排放。
贵州并没有将资源从富人重新分配给穷人，而是致力于基础设施建设。列宁曾用“经济制高点”来指代电力、交通等战略性部门。在贵州，人们可以从高耸的桥梁上俯瞰这些制高点。
这个以中国特色社会主义为纲领的工程型国家，其设立的目的只有一个：为人民提供物质上的改善，主要通过公共工程来实现。工程型国家之所以能够大规模建设，部分原因在于其成员自称是共产主义者，并且成长于崇拜苏联的时代。像习近平这样的共产党领导人接受的是深受马克思主义影响的教育。在他们看来，生产是推进共产主义的崇高事业，而消费则是资本主义的卑劣行径。这个党认为，只有国家才有智慧投资战略性大型项目，而消费者只会把钱浪费在自己身上。它反对普通民众掌握过多的资源，因为这会赋予个人而非国家更大的自主权。
中国共产党庆祝卡尔·马克思的诞辰；每十年召开两次的党代会闭幕式上，军乐队会在人民大会堂内演奏社会主义歌曲《国际歌》。但正如我在引言中所说，中国也是一个由伪装成左派的保守派统治的国家。或许没有哪个自称社会主义的国家像中国一样税负如此之轻。近四分之三的中国人口无需缴纳个人所得税。中国也未能征收广泛的财产税，这使得……大部分富裕城市居民的财富未受影响。它更依赖消费税，而消费税具有累退性，因为它对穷人的负担比对富人的负担更重。
北京曾多次宣布要征收房产税，但每次都半途而废。其中一个政治原因是，中国领导人熟知美国的口号“无代表不纳税”。由于国家征收的税种相对较轻，而且征收方式也比较隐蔽，这降低了民众质疑国家如何使用他们辛辛苦苦挣来的钱，以及他们缴纳的税款是否应该赋予他们更大的政治参与权的风险。
低税收使得中国在社会福利方面吝啬。其GDP中约有10%用于社会支出，而美国这一比例为20%，欧洲一些较为慷慨的国家则高达30%。中国的养老金和医疗保健支出远低于其他富裕国家。尤其在失业保险方面，中国更是吝啬：只有约十分之一的中国失业者有资格领取微薄的失业救济金。中国左翼人士偶尔会对这种现状提出抗议。然而，政府非但没有改善福利，反而拘留了试图组织马克思主义读书会的学生。
习近平强烈驳斥了中国需要更多福利的观点。在2021年的一次重要讲话中，他表示：“即使我们发展到了更高的水平……我们也不应该过度依赖社会转移支付。因为我们必须避免让人民因为享有福利而变得懒惰。” 担心福利会使人民懒惰，这在共产党领导人的言论中，听起来颇有几分罗纳德·里根的风格。
中国的经济模式并非对马克思主义的简单应用。中国共产党会说，其体制受到某些中国特色的制约。马克思列宁主义国家惯用的中央计划经济模式，与中国数百年来工程化国家的倾向有着某些共鸣，尤其是在经济领域。建设和控制。但中国也包含一些资本主义元素，这解释了为什么中国建立的经济模式比失败的苏联式国家更加持久。
建设、资本主义和控制。这些要素有时会相互冲突。在中国数字平台发展壮大并盈利之后，共产党对其进行了管控（这是我第六章的重点）。共产党对科技巨头及其商业模式颇有微词。企业和个人在没有国家干预的情况下进行交易——购买商品、借贷、签订服务合同。数字平台造就了亿万富翁，他们像硅谷的同行一样，忍不住炫耀自己的财富或智慧。随后，共产党在这些企业尚未真正掌握权力之前就将其摧毁。国家希望对整个社会的经济关系拥有最终的控制权。
缺乏社会保障体系是中国家庭大量储蓄以备不时之需的原因之一。而中国这个“工程国家”对此乐见其成。习近平这一代人成长于上世纪五十年代，当时中国效仿斯大林主义，对企业实行严格管控，并着力发展工业化和重工业。长期以来，中国共产党一直宣称，如果人民能够忍受当下的阵痛并进行储蓄，那么未来的生活将会更加美好。
习近平出生于1953年，那一年北京公布了第一个五年规划，集中国家资源建设了七百个工业项目。该规划直接借鉴了苏联的做法，并得到了苏联的大量援助，苏联为包括冶金厂、化工设施和国防项目在内的项目提供了技术指导。2020年，习近平宣布了第十四个五年规划，其雄心壮志远超苏联的任何尝试。
工程技术国家并未停止建设大型项目。“我们将对……的起源和演化进行基础科学研究。”“探索宇宙，开展星际探测，例如火星轨道探测和小行星探测，”这是“十四五”科技规划开篇的论述。接下来的内容更加令人振奋：“我们将建设硬X射线自由电子激光装置、高空宇宙射线观测站、综合极端条件实验装置、低本底辐射的深地尖端物理实验设施。”中国不仅想探索深空，还想利用“重型破冰船”进行深海极地探测。
“我们将新增3000公里城市轨道交通线路”，这是公共交通部分的内容。该计划详细列出了将要建设的高速公路和高铁路段。能源方面，该计划设定了主要目标：“我们将在雅鲁藏布江下游建设水电站”，其发电能力将是三峡大坝的三倍，并建设超高压输电线路，将电力从中国西部输送到东部。该计划还包含应对气候变化的方案，特别是水资源管理。北京将推进南水北调工程，这让人联想起公元7世纪的大运河。该工程规模宏大，旨在通过三条运河系统将中国南方河流的水引至干旱的北方城市，目标是在2050年完工。该计划设想在全国各地建设大型水库和大型防洪工程。
“十四五”规划概述了星际探索和其他国家主导的大型项目。规划中也包含一些惠及普通消费者的内容，但远不及这些项目激动人心。为了促进消费，规划提出了一些措施，例如“扩大农村地区的电子商务覆盖范围”、“改进产品召回机制”和“改善城市免税店”。这些措施固然不错，但与环绕火星的宏伟计划相比，却显得微不足道。经济规划者显然将全部精力投入到了科学项目上，而消费措施则相对次要。看起来像是仓促的补救措施。中国官员谈到促进消费时，往往指的是兴建新的购物中心或更换老旧的工业设备。换句话说，重点仍然在于投资建设，而不是改变家庭消费倾向，提高家庭支出占收入的比例。
在毛泽东时代，中国奉行的是一种更为字面意义上的马克思主义，生产资料完全由国家控制。邓小平使中国摆脱了这种失败的尝试。正如邓小平常说的，社会主义的本质特征不是经济再分配，而是“集中资源完成伟大任务”。这种灵活的定义使其更具适应性，促进了更高的经济增长，并使政权延续到了21世纪。按照邓小平的定义，美国也取得了许多社会主义成就。曼哈顿计划、州际公路系统和阿波罗计划都集中资源完成了伟大任务。或许，里根的战略防御倡议也可以被理解为社会主义。
当工程化国家运转良好时，它能造就像上海这样美丽的城市。但上海是个特例：近一个世纪以来，它一直是中国最富裕、最西化的城市。工程化国家也带来了诸多问题。要了解这些问题，我们应该再次回到贵州。
在崭新桥梁的背后，不仅隐藏着贫困，也隐藏着沉重的债务负担。贵州建设的根本希望在于，基础设施能够带来持久的经济活力。部分目标已经实现：2011年至2022年，贵州居民收入年均增长近10%，这部分得益于城镇化进程以及新基础设施促进的旅游业发展。
但贵州的大部分基础设施建设支出看起来都令人怀疑。那些超高桥梁并没有产生足够的收入来弥补任何损失。贵州省的运营成本高得惊人。该省11个机场中，有5个每周航班量不足12班，另有3个机场仍在建设中。贵州已成为中国负债最重的省份之一，并开始感受到真正的财政困境。2022年，贵阳市财政局罕见地公开表示，该市已无力偿还债务。但随后不久，政府便删除了这一声明。
贵州的债务激怒了北京。在中国，唯一比讨债人更可怕的，就是中央政府的政治监察员了。共产党已派出中央纪律检查委员会的官员队伍进驻贵州。他们甚至不受中国法律细则的约束。他们的职责并非调查法律上的犯罪行为，而是查处“违反党纪”的行为——这是一个模糊的罪名，不仅包括贪污腐败，还包括滥用公款和对共产党的政治不忠。这使得该委员会如同宗教裁判所，对成员强制执行教条和纪律。
金融调查人员在贵州省最西端的六盘水市——世界最高桥梁所在地——发现了一些内幕。六十二岁的李在勇是一位英俊潇洒的男子，他对这座城市有着宏伟的规划。在李担任六盘水市委书记的三年里，他批准了二十三个旅游项目，其中包括精美的中国寺庙和仿建的欧洲城镇广场。这些广场远看很漂亮，但近看却显得粗糙简陋。李的目标是将六盘水打造成滑雪胜地，尽管六盘水每年能下几英寸的雪就不错了。为了吸引滑雪爱好者，他修建了一条号称亚洲最长的缆车，以及数十台人工造雪机，用于在初级滑雪道上喷洒粉雪。此外，李还在山坡上种植了栗蔷薇果，这种果实呈球状，黄色，长满了尖刺，看起来有点吓人，但当地人却很喜欢它香甜的果肉。李认为，只要有足够的决心和造雪设备，他就能从零开始打造一个旅游中心。
六盘水当地居民对李在勇的计划大多持怀疑态度。虽然他们所在的地区拥有瀑布、喀斯特溶洞和秀丽的青山，但六盘水市本身却乏善可陈。当地产业以煤炭和铁矿开采为主。一位居民曾对电视台记者说：“我们这里没什么可看的。要花多少钱才能打造出一些有价值的东西呢？”李在勇对此深信不疑，并筹集了大量资金来推动计划的实施。由于他是六盘水市的最高官员，当地银行很难拒绝他的请求。
但李的努力均未取得成果。
六盘水从未发展成为热门滑雪胜地：中国的滑雪爱好者冬天都去东北，那里有真正的雪坡和真正的雪。来自北京和上海的富裕游客则对李先生那些华而不实的欧洲仿制品不屑一顾，转而前往威尼斯和维也纳体验真正的欧洲风情。如今，那些仿造的欧洲广场已被当地的黑山羊占领，它们把草坪当成了牧场。就连栗蔷薇也枯死了。
这座城市为此付出的代价仅仅是背负了210亿美元的新债务，对于一个贫困省份的贫困城市来说，这是一笔巨款。中央纪委将李光耀的投资斥为“面子工程”，并秘密地将他送入司法程序。2024年，官方媒体在黄金时段播出的纪录片中以李光耀为例，杀鸡儆猴。他在狱中依然英俊潇洒，但长期监禁使他的头发变灰，不知是压力所致还是染发剂短缺。在昏暗的房间里，李光耀为自己肆意挥霍的行为辩解道：“那是国家的钱，不是我的。”
李滥用公款，但他同时也在玩弄一种其他党委书记都能理解的政治游戏。共产党的人事惯例之一（沿袭自清朝）就是官员轮换，迫使他们广泛涉猎各辖区。经验至关重要，它能防止他们将权力基础建立在自己的家乡省份。中国很少有官员像乔·拜登那样，在成为副总统和总统之前，他的整个政治生涯都在代表特拉华州度过。李在镕在来到六盘水之前，曾在贵州各地担任官员。他要想晋升到更高的职位，就必须展现出推动发展的政绩。
中国的政治体制奖励建设。毕竟，中国的政治领导人是被选拔出来的，而非选举产生的。为了晋升到更高的职位，他们要接受组织部的严格考核。组织部与宣传部和中央纪律检查委员会一起，是中共最重要的执政机构。组织部会根据一些软性指标来评估地方领导人，例如领导能力、忠诚度和反贪能力。该部门还会评估官员是否有能力在促进经济增长的同时压制政治异议。
但很少有党委书记能提出发展其所在乡镇或省份的切实可行的方案。此外，由于地方政府没有房产税，其主要资金来源是向房地产开发商出售土地。这种人事政策和财政机制的特殊性，造就了像李在勇这样的官员，他们热衷于投资光鲜亮丽的项目，而其失败之处只有在卸任后才会显现。
李的更大目标是博得上级的赏识，而在这方面，他一度成功了。党提拔他为贵州省副省长，他在这个职位上任职五年，直到他垮台。当债务到期时，李的政治生涯也随之结束。在他电视认罪几个月后，省级法院判处李死刑，缓刑两年执行。
李并不是唯一被拘留的贵州官员。2023年，北京对大量中高级省级官员进行了调查。甚至连贵州省最高官员——前省委书记——也未能幸免。贵州的情况并非中国经济增长战略的个例。全国各地都存在着可疑的项目，几乎每个省都有可笑的欧洲广场仿制品，这些广场根本无法吸引游客；基础设施利用率低下，无法偿还债券持有人；过度建设的城市难以摆脱对资源开采的依赖。
李构想了一些异想天开的发展计划。如果任何一个党政官员被派到贵州西部这样一片毫无发展前景的土地上，他们都会这么做。但他在北京中央政府精心设计的政治游戏中变得过于肆无忌惮。
工程之都并非只有光鲜亮丽的上海。有时是六盘水，一个投资方向完全错误的城市；有时是天津，曾经辉煌，却因过度建设而走向衰落。我住在北京时，经常听到人们用邻近的天津来指代过度开发。有一天，我从北京坐了半小时火车，亲自去看看。
天津相对富裕。2000年代，它斥巨资打造金融区，并自诩为“中国曼哈顿”。这不过是一次略显浮夸的品牌宣传，不过这座城市确实成功地从曼哈顿引进了一所真正的学府：茱莉亚音乐学院于2020年在天津开设了其首个国际校区。天津曾经是中国工业化程度最高的城市之一——那时中国的经济理念还深受苏联的影响。如今，它已成为中国“铁锈地带”的象征，与真正的金融中心相去甚远。天津划定的金融区滨海的摩天大楼大多空置。2020年我工作日到访时，滨海中心商业街里有一些行人，但几乎所有商业楼宇都空无一人。“中国曼哈顿”空空荡荡。
天津不仅建成了中国第三高的摩天大楼（97层，入住率极低），还建了一座非常上镜的图书馆。天津滨海图书馆由荷兰建筑师设计，中心是一个明亮的白色球体，周围环绕着波浪形的书架。然而，这些书架上几乎空无一物。走近一看，才发现这些漂亮的书架上摆放的只是书籍书脊的数码照片。周围的人都在自拍，而不是在浏览或阅读。
我有时觉得天津图书馆就像中国经济的缩影：宏伟的硬件设施远观令人印象深刻，但缺乏真正重要的实质内容。天津本可以把精力放在吸引更优秀的企业入驻那些令人惊叹的摩天大楼上，但它却只能建造更多空壳建筑，同时背负巨额债务。
美国信用评级机构穆迪将天津和贵州列为中国负债最重的两个地区。它们的债务与GDP之比均接近意大利的水平。2018年，天津承认滨海的增长数据被严重高估，被迫将GDP下调了近20%。中国政府承认数据造假的情况实属罕见。因此，中央政府试图在附近推行另一项大型开发计划就显得更加令人费解。距离天津不远便是习近平的标志性新举措之一：雄安新区。习近平曾宣布，雄安将成为中国最现代化的城市，并成为中国“下一个千年战略”的核心。由于习近平对雄安给予了高度重视，雄安很可能获得大量新的投资——除非这种重视程度有所下降，或者习近平不在位，在这种情况下，雄安可能会变成另一个滨海。
打造像北京、天津和雄安这样的城市超级枢纽，是中央政府的一项赌注。中央政府已指定十几个城市区域进行集中投资。其中最大的五个区域分别是北部的北京、东部的沪杭苏州、南部的深圳-香港-广州、中部的武汉-长沙以及西部的重庆-成都——平均人口达1.1亿，几乎与日本的人口相当。政府正大力投资铁路、地铁、公交和高速公路，将这些城市群连接成区域中心。世界银行前首席城市规划师阿兰·贝尔托曾向《经济学人》杂志阐述，这些城市群能够实现前所未有的生产力水平，这正是工业革命时期英国与世界其他地区之间的巨大差异。
这是中国增长战略的一部分，该战略的核心在于大量建设。这并非中国政府的专属行为，中国企业也在这样做。美国和欧洲曾以中国企业产能过剩为由发动贸易战，提出外交抗议并对钢铁、铝、太阳能光伏板和电动汽车征收反制关税。这个工程强国更热衷于促进建筑和制造业的发展，而非服务业。
中国目前的汽车年产能约为6000万辆（三分之一为电动汽车，三分之二为燃油车），而全球汽车年销量约为9000万辆。中国国内市场仅能消化其产量的一半不到。中国之所以能取得如此高的产量，部分原因是每个省份都渴望成为汽车制造中心。中国拥有超过一百个汽车品牌，其中大多数规模较小，都在激烈争夺市场份额。竞争如此激烈，部分原因是汽车公司能够获得地方政府的大力支持，各地方政府都试图通过低息贷款和消费补贴等方式扶持本国企业。例如，上海遍布国产的上汽-大众汽车，而深圳则由其本土品牌比亚迪主导。
有时，即使破产也无法阻止汽车制造商继续生产。小型电动汽车制造商智多在2019年破产；五年后，在政府的帮助下，该公司进行了重组，并重启了生产线。蔚来汽车在2020年也濒临破产，直到其总部所在地合肥市政府出手相救；该公司此后，该公司扭转了颓势，再次开始交付电动汽车。金融危机后，美国向底特律汽车制造商提供了巨额救助。在中国，地方政府每天都在帮助企业。因此，很少有品牌能够真正实现大规模生产，中国不得不依靠出口来消化国内消费者未购买的车辆。
中国政府更注重保障经济供给侧的顺畅运行，而非直接援助消费者。这一原则在2020年表现得尤为明显。当西方国家政府通过向家庭发放现金补贴来应对全球疫情时——例如，美国发放了三轮，总计3200美元——北京方面却鲜少提供财政支持。政府仅对失业保险金进行了微薄的增幅，而数百万失业者中只有极少数人能够领取到这笔补贴。
北京方面认为，帮助工人的最佳途径是让他们重返工作岗位。实际上，这意味着帮助企业重启生产，而不是向家庭发放现金。为此，北京推行了“清零”战略，其中包括采取严厉措施，禁止外国旅客入境，并在发现新冠病毒（SARS-CoV-2）病例的地区实施长期封锁。北京尤其希望制造业能够维持运转。当世界其他地区生产口罩、棉签、远程办公所需的电子产品等物资时，当外国消费者有刺激性资金可以消费时，中国工厂已经做好了满足全球需求的准备。
一段时间内，这一策略奏效了。中国的贸易顺差在2021年创下历史新高，并在2022年再次接近万亿美元。尽管唐纳德·特朗普对大量中国制造的商品加征了关税，但美中两国在2022年的贸易额仍然创下纪录。然而，中国制造业的蓬勃发展并不能弥补其他地区因封锁措施造成的损失。经济方面。但北京的态度是，只要制造商能够生产出更多商品，经济就强劲，也就没有必要发放支票或其他形式的福利。
制造商们正全力生产。我记得2020年秋天，我去参观了上海郊外一家科技公司的工厂。一位高管邀请我参观他的新生产线。他是一位中国人，之前主要在美国公司工作，现在仍然经常往返于中美两国之间。参观结束后，我们在他的办公室里一边喝茶一边聊天，谈到当时美国为何陷入生产困境，无法生产人们需要的大量个人防护装备。“美国制造商一直在问自己，生产口罩和棉签是否属于他们的‘核心竞争力’。他们中的大多数都认为不属于。”他放下茶杯，看着我。“中国公司则认为赚钱才是他们的核心竞争力，所以他们就去生产口罩，或者其他任何市场需要的产品。”
2020年，我本可以买到印有富士康（全球最大的电子产品代工制造商）、比亚迪（全球最大的电动汽车制造商）或京东（中国第二大电商平台）品牌的口罩。这些公司改造了部分生产线，进军口罩和赚钱的行业。中国企业集团很少会犹豫是否要涉足其他公司的核心业务领域。例如，华为从电信基础设施设备制造商转型，与小米等智能手机制造商展开竞争。如今，这两家公司都已进军汽车行业。这种扩张既源于竞争激烈的市场环境，也得益于政府补贴，这些补贴使得企业更容易尝试开发新产品。
它们使得企业能够推出大量同质化产品，残酷地相互压价，并祈祷竞争对手在自己之前耗尽资金。中国现在主导着太阳能行业，但由于产能过剩，几乎没有企业感到满意。这些中国公司在残酷的价格战中拖垮全球竞争对手后，其中一部分最终难逃倒闭的命运。这一趋势在中国股市造成了一个令人沮丧的怪象。金融投资者发现，中国股市的表现与GDP增长之间并无关联。尽管1992年至2018年间，中国经济实际增长了八倍，但上证综合指数却是表现最差的主要股指之一。在中国，由于包括公司治理薄弱在内的诸多原因，境内股票的走势往往难以预测。部分原因是，即使是像太阳能光伏板这样中国企业占据主导地位的技术领域，也很少有企业能够从中获得丰厚的利润。
金融投资者不需要我们的同情。中国特色社会主义还有更大的受害者。
环境是所有这些建设的重大受害者。中国的环境评估并非不重视，但几乎总是屈从于经济发展。所有这些高速公路都由大量的钢铁和混凝土建造而成，摧毁了许多栖息地。它们的建设也需要消耗巨大的能源：中国目前的煤炭消耗量超过了世界其他国家的总和。尽管过去十年中国的空气质量有所改善，但对重工业的过度依赖正是导致许多城市仍然笼罩在灰蒙蒙的雾霾之中的原因。
中国并不致力于保护环境，而是试图通过工程手段解决问题。过去五年，中国屡遭气候相关灾难的侵袭，很难证明中国在防洪和水利工程方面的投资改善了现状。2022年夏天，在我骑行重庆一年后，我重返重庆，发现这座城市正经历着历史性的干旱。令我震惊的是，重庆的两条河流之一——嘉陵江几乎干涸，就连雄伟的长江也出现了大片干涸河段。人们为了避暑都待在室内。但由于江水流量锐减，连水电站都无法运转，许多人甚至连空调都无法使用。
中国其他气候灾害包括河南省特大洪水（据官方统计，有14人在地铁列车中溺亡）、2022年冬季中国中部地区大面积停电，以及2024年广东省洪水导致十万多人流离失所。大型工程项目或许缓解了原本就十分严峻的形势；或许它们根本没有产生任何影响。但环境科学家经常质疑这类工程是否反而加剧了灾情。修建水坝或许能够缓解洪灾，但也可能通过减少下游流量和增加蒸发损失来加剧干旱。
国家修建大型水坝会淹没生态系统，并导致居民流离失所。世界上最大的水坝是位于重庆附近的三峡大坝。修建这座大坝需要安置多达150万人。政府提供的安置补偿通常很慷慨。但对于那些阻碍开发建设（无论是新建高速公路还是新建购物中心）的受苦居民，政府的耐心是有限的，最终会想方设法迫使他们搬迁。
受影响最严重的是那些被针对的少数族裔群体，他们不得不承受北京的社会改造。例如，中国政府特别针对藏族人，强迫他们从高海拔山区迁徙到低海拔农场，部分原因是政府为了更方便地监控他们。当牦牛牧民搬到公寓楼里时，他们该怎么办？那些只熟悉农牧生活的农村居民，在政府将他们安置到一排排高楼大厦中时，往往感到茫然无措。科罗拉多大学的两名研究人员记录了中国强迫当地居民离开家园的胁迫手段。这一过程被中国政府称为“思想改造”，其范围从……政府将重新安置描绘成一种自愿且令人愉快的选择，并与不愿离开的顽固民众进行密集的单独会谈。官员们将诱惑与威胁相结合，直到农民们屈服为止。因此，该州实现了100%的“自愿”重新安置率。
鲁莽的建设往往导致质量低劣。建筑商甚至在建造校舍时也使用廉价材料。2008年袭击四川的地震摧毁了数千间教室，造成五千名儿童丧生（据官方统计）。一些悲痛欲绝的家长试图自行调查官员的腐败行为，却遭到拘留。公共工程赋予政府官员很大的自由裁量权，让他们在项目建设方面拥有诸多收受回扣的机会。即使官员清廉，开发商也可能将工程外包给成本更低的建筑商，后者从中抽取利润，再将工程分包出去，如此循环往复，直到最终落到那些愿意将成本压到最低的承包商手中。四川倒塌的学校被家长们戏称为“豆腐房”，因为它们极其脆弱。换句话说，规模大并不总是意味着质量好。
许多建设项目造成了巨大的钢铁和水泥浪费，而这些钢铁和水泥都是燃烧大量煤炭产生的。这些资源有更好的用途：例如用于健康和教育等更温和的领域，而不是修建更多高速公路这种庞大的基础设施。
尽管上海的富裕学生在国际考试中成绩斐然，但中国农村地区的教育水平仍然普遍低下。新冠疫情暴露了中国医疗体系的薄弱，医生和护士短缺，人均重症监护病床数量仅为美国的六分之一。像李在勇这样的官员或许更热衷于建造一座配备先进设备的豪华医院。然而，当涉及到聘请能够操作这些设施的训练有素的技术人员时，他们的注意力就会转移，因为共产党更擅长奖励新人。建设重于健康。工程建设主要追求宏伟壮丽。虽然公共厕所很多，但提供厕纸却时有时无。在中国任何地方都不建议饮用自来水，即使是上海也不例外。
过去四十年，工程技术国家经历了疯狂的建设浪潮。这既取得了巨大的成就，也造成了相当大的破坏。如果中国能够学会减少建设，而美国能够学会增加建设，未来将会更好。
我逐渐意识到，中国和美国在很多方面都截然相反。在中国，家庭储蓄率很高，而在美国，借贷或使用信用卡消费却非常容易。在国家政策方面，中国更注重经济的供给侧：它通过提供优惠融资和各种政策支持来扶持制造业，从而抑制消费。与此同时，美国则专注于调节需求，例如，在房价高昂的城市实施租金管制，或在疫情期间向消费者发放支票。
这两种方法都遇到了问题。中国不可能通过建造更多高桥成为世界最大经济体。它也不可能继续生产超过国内销量两倍以上的汽车。而美国也开始意识到过度关注经济需求侧的问题。例如，当联邦政府在住房短缺的城市提供租金补贴时，房东可以提高租金，租房者的处境并没有改善。当政府增加对不断上涨的大学学费的财政援助时，大学可以通过提高学费来抵消一部分资金。在“富足议程”、“供给侧进步主义”和“进步研究”等旗帜下，各种运动正试图放松美国的供给限制。这些都是非常好的想法，我希望它们能够得到广泛采纳。
美国与中国之间的经济伙伴关系这使得许多群体受益，但也加剧了两国经济体系固有的问题。过度依赖中国制造业加速了美国对自身供应链的忽视。与此同时，中国却无需摆脱对出口的依赖，因为美国消费者始终有充足的需求购买其产品。随着两国关系日益疏远，它们将面临一项艰巨的任务：美国必须重振其在公共工程和制造业建设方面失去的实力，而中国则必须克服对民众懒惰化的担忧，从而赋予消费者更多自主权。
对两国而言，做到这些都不容易。每当中国经济出现波动，北京的第一反应就是宣布另一项庞大的公共工程计划。在经历了2023年底一年的低迷增长后，北京宣布将斥资1万亿元人民币（约合1400亿美元）用于防洪和自然灾害应对。正如其历年五年规划所显示的那样，中国的本能依然是不断建设。政府各部委和国有企业总是在制定下一个铁路延伸段、下一个桥梁、下一条地铁线路的计划。由于规划已经完成，新的资金注入可以迅速促进经济增长，例如，新建一座桥梁的支出就能立即在经济统计数据中留下深刻印象。尽管自2008年大规模基础设施建设热潮以来，中国每单位新增投资带来的经济增长有所下降，但这似乎无关紧要。共产党之所以继续建设，是因为党内人才济济，也因为马克思列宁主义者不愿将经济自主权拱手让给人民。
如果中国少建一些，但建得更好，情况会更好。但我们也不应该用美国的标准来评判中国，坦白说，美国的公共基础设施确实不足。因为或许比一个过度活跃、无法停止运转的国家更糟糕的，是一个完全无法运转的国家。
当我审视美国时，我既惊叹于它所拥有的成就，也惊叹于它所取得的成就。1970年以前中国确实进行了大量建设，但之后建设量却很少。 2016年，中国将GDP的13.5%用于基础设施投资，而美国过去三十年的平均水平接近每年3%。两国难道不能在基础设施投资方面拉近几个百分点吗？
这本书大部分是在耶鲁法学院的办公室里写成的。纽黑文与纽约市之间有便捷的地铁北线（Metro North）列车连接，这些列车舒适可靠，但速度稍慢。有一天，我偶然发现了一份1915年的地铁北线列车时刻表。时刻表显示，当时从纽约中央车站到纽黑文的特快列车所需时间与2025年相同：大约两个小时。这样的比较并不完全公平，因为如今的列车停靠站比以前更多。但我认为，康涅狄格州的居民要求比一个世纪前更快的列车服务是合理的。整个美国东北部都迫切需要更好的铁路服务。目前，该地区唯一的高速列车（阿西乐特快）如果运行在欧洲或亚洲的任何地方，都会被剥夺“高速”的称号。
人们或许会认为，美国建设项目时谨慎行事、耗资巨大也无妨；毕竟，它是一个富裕的国家。但如今，行动迟缓却可能酿成全球灾难。如果不进行大规模建设，例如中国擅长的太阳能、风能和输电项目，就无法实现大规模脱碳。
尽管拜登政府投入巨资应对气候变化，但美国在基础设施建设方面进展缓慢。一个警示案例是“科德角风电项目”（Cape Wind），这是美国首次尝试开发海上风力涡轮机。开发商试图在马萨诸塞州海岸附近建造涡轮机，利用比陆地风更平稳、更强劲的海风。不幸的是，“科德角风电项目”位于楠塔基特海峡，那里居住着一些美国最富有、也大多持自由主义立场的公民，例如肯尼迪家族，他们的庄园就位于海恩尼斯港。这些居民联合起来，成立了一个非营利组织，他们聘请了包括哈佛大学一位著名宪法学教授在内的律师团队，对该项目提出质疑。经过十六年的诉讼，开发商最终放弃了该项目。
环境评估持续延误可再生能源项目。2024年，美国海上风电运营装机容量为42兆瓦，在建装机容量为932兆瓦，另有高达20978兆瓦的项目正在审批中，其中大部分项目都在等待环境评估结果。与此同时，中国正在建设全球大部分可再生能源。2023年，美国新增风电装机容量为6吉瓦，而中国则新增了76吉瓦。同年，中国建成了全球三分之二的风电和太阳能发电厂，其装机容量是其他七国集团（G7）富裕国家总和的四倍。
律师主导的社会非常擅长保护富人的利益。而工程型国家对基础设施建设的延误容忍度很低。很难想象一群富人能够通过法律手段迫使中国取消清洁能源项目。如果气候危机真的迫在眉睫，那么世界其他国家也需要像工程型国家一样迅速行动。
美国人开始重新认识到建设的价值。这种政治意识萌芽于左翼阵营，该阵营过去往往以环境保护或社区保护为名，倾向于维持现状。纽约时报的埃兹拉·克莱因指出，在民主党倾向最强的地区，建设反而最困难：例如加州的高速铁路、纽约的第二大道地铁，以及几乎所有大城市的住房建设。在《富足》（Abundance）一书中，克莱因和德里克·汤普森倡导打破限制，实现供给侧进步主义。
这就是中国特色社会主义能够大放异彩的地方。大规模建设有时可以释放市场力量。贵州人民或许并不富裕，但他们确实会自豪地指着新建的桥梁。同时，人们还可以利用新建的公路和高速铁路前往市场和城市。无法收回成本的基础设施可能会引起债券持有人和银行的不满。但它们代表着对普通民众所享受的社会福利的补贴。
中国是否已经在实践供给侧进步主义？并没有，因为就美国左派的理解而言，它根本不是“进步”的体现。中国的建设方式包括驱逐民众、对环境保护和工人安全采取相对宽松的态度，以及在缺乏与民众实质性沟通的情况下解读公共利益。
中国的过度建设造成了严重的社会、经济和环境成本。美国无需盲目效仿。但中国的经验确实能为美国提供一些政治启示。中国已经证明，财政约束远没有人们想象的那么强大。正如约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯所说：“凡是我们能做的，我们都能负担得起。”对于像美国这样基础设施匮乏的国家而言，建设可以通过促进经济活动带来长期收益，最终超过短期建设成本。此外，在服务不足的地区进行大规模建设，也是一种再分配的方式，既能让当地居民满意，又能满足那些通常对福利支出持怀疑态度的财政保守派人士的需求。
与其担忧债券义警，工程建设国家更专注于为人民带来物质上的改善。过去几十年里，贵州农村居民的生活水平得到了显著提高。允许自由企业发展的同时大力建设基础设施，正是共产党能够持续获得民众支持的原因之一。
中国的决策者拒绝受华尔街投资者的一些基本原则的约束——减少投资、缩减资产、提高盈利能力——所有这些都强调效率。或许未来这会引发金融困境。然而，就目前而言，大规模建设改善了普通民众的生活，而不仅仅是少数精英阶层的福祉。这种对效率的低迷恰恰是中国另一项成功的关键：中国之所以能在先进制造业领域占据主导地位，部分原因就在于它能够容忍较低的利润，同时又能培养庞大的劳动力。
第三章 技术力量
1980年，深圳最负盛名的当属牡蛎。几个世纪以来，这里居住着许多以海洋为生的人们：珍珠渔民、盐农和牡蛎养殖户。村民们在沿海一带设置养殖笼，潮汐涨落将阳光加热的咸水与清凉的山涧溪流汇合，孕育出鲜嫩多汁、远近闻名的牡蛎。然而，那已是过去。三十年来，深圳海域再也没有出产过牡蛎，它们的栖息地已被工业化破坏殆尽。
深圳曾是中国乃至全世界最繁荣的城市。其人口从1980年的30万飙升至2000年的700万，并在2020年达到1800万。对于许多中国人而言，他们往往因其出身地而被评判，而深圳则是一片充满机遇的土地，在这里，没有人是本地人。这座城市的一句标语至今仍偶尔出现在广告牌上：“你一到深圳，就是本地人。” 这句话暗指北京和上海，在这些城市里，老一辈家族仍然保持着某种程度的排外性（就像在巴黎或伦敦一样）。
1980年，邓小平将深圳命名为“经济特区”时，这座城市除了紧邻英国统治下的香港之外，几乎没有什么其他优势。邓小平押注深圳的成功能够打破中国其他领导层一直犹豫不决的社会主义经济壁垒。他为深圳提供了一系列扶持政策，并撰写社论，号召有抱负的人们迁往深圳。
响应他号召的是那些从未享受过多少经济机会的农村居民，以及那些对在僵化的国有企业工作感到不满的城市居民。这些农民工成为了中国迈向资本主义的先锋力量。他们在20世纪80年代投身于玩具、服装和其他消费品的生产，并逐年提升自身能力。到了21世纪初，深圳已成为重要的电子产业中心。这支队伍将成为20世纪初最伟大的商业事业——让智能手机走进全球几乎每个人手中——的先锋。
2007年，史蒂夫·乔布斯发布iPhone时，深圳无疑是进行大规模生产的最佳地点。几年前，苹果公司就已经在深圳扩大了iPod的生产规模。苹果公司认定，深圳是打造乔布斯构想中最具突破性产品的理想之城。
iPhone 已成为消费品中最稀有的一种——既普及又被视为身份的象征。它也是中美两国贸易关系的巅峰之作，美国的创新理念和营销智慧与中国数百万工人（由台湾富士康等代工厂商管理）的精诚合作，共同打造了这款尖端电子产品。组织一支庞大的劳动力队伍，将数千个零部件组装成世界上最复杂的消费品，绝非易事。正是这项壮举，使苹果公司一跃成为首家市值万亿美元的公司。
中国从这次合作中获得了更大的收获。在公司估值飙升的同时，中国也凭借国际合作每年培训数十万中国工人生产精密电子产品而获得了国家实力的提升。随后，中国企业利用这支强大的劳动力队伍，在以深圳为中心的其他产业领域，例如电动汽车、电池系统和消费级无人机，引领了世界潮流。
中国在发展过程中秉持着与硅谷截然不同的技术理念：追求的是实体和工业技术，而非社交媒体或电子商务平台等虚拟技术。在中国，技术并非以光鲜亮丽的物件来体现；相反，它体现在像深圳这样的工程实践社区中，技术存在于劳动者的头脑和手中。本章将揭示一座城市如何一步步攀登技术阶梯，从上世纪80年代生产衬衫和玩具，到30年后成为世界尖端电子产品的制造中心。
正如我在引言中所说，中国常常显得杂乱无章。但有些地方却一尘不染。我去过的最井然有序的地方是苹果公司的生产基地。所有工人始终各司其职。你可以通过他们的制服来判断他们的级别：例如，生产线经理可能穿着绿色制服，而装配工人则穿着蓝色制服。头发较长的男女工人都会戴上发网。工人们不允许进入其他公司产品的装配线。每天下班时，他们要经过大约六台扫描仪，以确保没有私藏任何产品。人们会在规定的时间分批离开食堂或进入宿舍。班车会将工人们送到餐厅或卡拉OK厅，在那里，他们终于可以摆脱束缚，享受片刻的轻松。
在工厂区很容易迷路，因为很多建筑看起来都一样。iPhone 的出现极大地推动了工厂规模的扩张：富士康位于深圳北部的制造园区占地五百英亩。园区内当然有工厂。这里不仅有宿舍，还有杂货店、咖啡馆、消防队、医院、电影院、游泳池和商贩经营的餐厅。这座工厂的规模堪比一座城市。每年初秋，随着圣诞节期间产量激增，工厂人口达到高峰。宿舍也随之爆满，一个房间里最多可挤进六名男女员工。装配线每天三班倒，每班八小时；工厂里一刻不停地生产着iPhone。高峰期，富士康深圳园区有30万员工，这与匹兹堡或圣路易斯的人口数量大致相当。2009年的一份中国报告估计，该园区每天消耗40吨大米、20吨猪肉、10吨面粉和500桶食用油。
2020年，富士康在全球拥有近百万名员工。十年前，当iPhone在深圳全面投产时，工人们或许会看到有人驾驶高尔夫球车在园区内穿梭。那人正是富士康（又名鸿海精密工业）创始人郭台铭。郭台铭每天早上可能先在公司泳池里游几圈，然后驾驶着他那辆特制的、装有自行车铃铛的高尔夫球车，在厂区里巡视到深夜，监督生产。他在台湾以敬业著称。郭台铭积极争取戴尔和苹果等美国公司的代工合同，通过严守技术机密、按时、高质量、大规模地生产产品赢得了他们的信任。
郭台铭也有其奇特的一面。2019年，他声称梦中海神女神显灵，指示他竞选台湾总统。同年，他在党内初选中位列第二。
郭台铭在深圳园区创办了获得官方认证的富士康大学，开设了25个专业，其中大部分与工程相关。郭台铭身边聚集了一批副手，他们他几乎和他一样不知疲倦地工作，每周六天开车送富士康高管去工厂，周日还要参加学习会。早些年，他们学习的是工程原理。一位前员工告诉我，近年来，政治教育变得更加重要，这意味着他们必须学习中国最高领导人的讲话。课程内容也从十年前深圳自由发展时期的“乔布斯思想”转变为如今更加严谨的“习近平思想”。
即使在最好的情况下，电子产品组装工作也极其重复。管理者更青睐手指纤细的工人，尤其偏爱女性，因为他们认为女性更灵活。当我问工厂主管为什么iPhone不在美国生产时，他们总是提到手指。“看看美国人那双粗壮的手，”台湾的管理者告诉我，“他们怎么可能组装出像iPhone这样精密的机器呢？”
很难说哪一项工作更枯燥乏味：是研读习近平的讲话，还是进行电子产品组装。两者都令人麻木，但组装工作带来的痛苦更大。如果不是2010年深圳富士康十几名工人从工厂宿舍跳楼自杀，我们对富士康的了解会少得多。这场悲剧迫使富士康和苹果公司进入危机管理模式。一向回避媒体的郭台铭邀请了几位西方记者参观了部分园区，随后，为了防止更多悲剧发生，富士康在宿舍周围铺设了300万平方米的防护网。
随着iPhone销量的爆炸式增长，富士康面临着持续的劳动力短缺。很快，深圳就无法满足其生产需求。郭台铭没有等待农民工迁往深圳，而是决定将富士康迁往劳动力供应最充足的地区。工厂在中国人口最稠密的地区如雨后春笋般涌现：西南部的四川和重庆，上海周边的东部省份，以及北部省份。河南省。这些地区仍然是苹果公司的主要生产基地，其中最大的生产基地位于河南省会郑州市。旺季时，郑州工厂可容纳约35万名员工。
为争取富士康建厂，中国官员们争先恐后。他们垂涎这家公司能为辖区创造的大量就业机会和税收，而这也能让他们升迁到更高的职位。地方官员承诺满足富士康苛刻的用工要求。在成都，基层官员必须完成招募工人的指标；未能达标者可能会被派到流水线上工作。一位成都官员因为没完成指标，不仅被派去流水线工作，还遭到了那些业绩更好的同事的残酷嘲讽：“你在那里的时候可别从楼上跳下来，”有人这样对她说。
河南官员为了招揽工人进厂可谓煞费苦心。2016年，为了应对iPhone产能激增，河南官员从国有煤炭企业“借调”工人。2017年，《金融时报》报道称，多达三千名高中生被迫在装配线上工作——其中一些人每天工作长达11个小时——否则学校将扣留他们的毕业证书。他们被委婉地称为“实习生”，组装iPhone是为了“积累职业经验”。2022年，当新冠疫情管控措施导致供应链瘫痪时，他们又招募了退役的解放军人员来填补生产线的空缺。富士康在河南的工厂也爆发了一些针对“零新冠”政策最激烈的抗议活动，一些年轻人向成群的防暴警察投掷砖块。
海伦·王（与我并无亲属关系）在2000年代初曾是富士康在加州的一名高管，当时苹果公司挖走了她，让她担任采购主管。她最终负责第一代iPhone的零部件采购。在一次采访中，海伦告诉我，她接到任务后的第一反应通常是：“我需要建造一座城市。”如此大规模的建设，对于苹果、富士康和苹果来说都是一项艰巨的任务。政府官员们齐心协力。海伦告诉我，深圳沿着山坡进行平整作业，使土地适合生产。另一位苹果公司前工程师告诉我，四个月后，当他从库比蒂诺再次来访时，一片草地已经变成了一座六层高的工业厂房，正准备安装设备。深圳、四川和河南的地方官员不仅合作招工，还提供廉价土地、巨额税收优惠，并修建道路、宿舍和工厂。中央政府也参与其中，设立了“保税区”，简化了清关流程。政府与企业密切合作，将工人、零部件运送到工厂，并将成品运出。
邓小平在其他改革派领导人的帮助下，将深圳打造成了资本主义的温床。资本主义需要什么？股票市场，深圳在1990年就建立了股票市场。还需要什么？还有那些生产效率低下、劳动条件恶劣的工厂。而深圳恰恰拥有这些工厂。沃尔玛在深圳投入巨资采购商品：袜子、玩具、灯具，以及消费者在大型超市里想要的几乎所有东西。2002年，沃尔玛将其全球采购中心从金融中心香港迁至距离工厂更近的深圳。到那时，深圳的工厂已经开始生产比袜子更复杂的产品。它们已经熟练掌握了各种电子元件的研发：小型电池、电缆连接器和显示屏。
爆炸式增长也带来了代价：例如，牡蛎无法再在工厂破坏的海洋环境中生存。沃尔玛、富士康和许多其他跨国公司都被指控存在恶劣的劳动标准。深圳新建建筑速度过快。政府对“五缺”建筑忧心忡忡，这些建筑没有设计图纸、许可证、施工监管或官方登记。据《深圳商报》报道，结果是，八分之一的农村建筑都存在这个问题。 该建筑于 1983 年竣工，曾出现严重的结构问题，有时甚至发生坍塌。
我在香港生活时经常去深圳。可以乘渡轮，沿途风景宜人；或者更方便的是，搭乘连接两座城市的地铁。如今，深圳是中国最宜居的城市之一，摩天大楼林立，购物中心鳞次栉比，绿树成荫。但新建的建筑并没有抹去这座城市的历史。在宽阔的大道之间，点缀着熙熙攘攘、保存完好的城中村落，它们赋予这座城市的活力远胜于那些玻璃幕墙的摩天大楼。商务会议结束后，我常常会走进小巷，探寻这些城中村落。白天，这里是纺织作坊，晚上，小餐馆里摆满了铁板海鲜和满满的啤酒。
深圳的中心是华强北购物中心。这是一个横跨数栋楼的巨型集市，摊位上摆放的不是香料或丝绸，而是批发电子产品。每个店铺的门面通常都由一个灯火通明的招牌组成，招牌下方悬挂着透明的塑料箱，里面装着电线、专用半导体、适配器、电容器以及你能想到的任何电子元件，人们可以一捧一捧地从中挑选。这里熙熙攘攘，热闹非凡。人们讨价还价的嘈杂声此起彼伏，伴随着撕开包装胶带的尖叫声，仿佛在宣告着交易的完成。
我第一次去华强北的时候，逛遍了商场里数百家店铺，一个印着鲸鱼图案的手机壳一下子吸引了我的目光。我心想，随身带着一个《白鲸记》的纪念品应该挺有意思的。当我准备买手机壳的时候，老板有点惊讶我只买了一个。“我们通常都是成百上千地接单。”他花了一点时间在电脑上切换系统，才满足了我这个小订单的需求。
深圳及其周边城市（广州、东莞、珠海以及其他六座城市）的总人口相当于德国。这片区域并非毫无魅力。香港山峦叠嶂，摩天大楼林立，令人叹为观止；广州则拥有宏伟的寺庙和气派的别墅。然而，将这片区域视为一个巨大的工业园区，尤其是电子产品制造基地，或许更为贴切。驱车驶出深圳市区，这一点便显而易见。沿着尘土飞扬的道路，你会看到工厂、仓库和工具车间，它们鲜有美感可言，大多显得单调乏味。
称深圳为“硬件硅谷”一点也不为过。就像从帕洛阿尔托到圣何塞那一带一样，深圳也遍布着高速公路旁林立的乏味办公园区，周围环绕着美丽的自然风光。朋友们告诉我，深圳和硅谷一样，是创办初创公司的绝佳之地。一群人会在晚餐时讨论想法，分配任务，第二天早上就开始工作。相比之下，在北京，晚餐往往是没完没了的酒局，人们肆无忌惮地吹嘘自己在高层的人脉，而之后的后续行动却令人摸不着头脑。
苹果并非只是凭空构思新想法，然后让制造商去执行。相反，这是库比蒂诺和深圳之间密切合作的结果。“ （苹果产品）不是设计好就直接送过去。那样听起来好像双方毫无互动，”苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克曾对一位采访者这样说道。在加州设计、在其他地方生产的产品“需要一种紧密的合作关系”。2019年，美联航制作了一则宣传横幅，强调苹果对其业务的重要性。美联航写道，苹果每天预订旧金山至上海航线的50个商务舱座位，每年为航空公司带来3500万美元的收入。这相当于一条航线上超过18000个商务舱座位。
苹果在全球拥有数十个生产基地，所有这些生产基地都旨在生产出质量完全相同的产品。这就是为什么苹果公司不断从库比蒂诺派遣工程经理，要求他们驻守在深圳或其他亚洲地区的工厂，直到解决生产问题才能返回。这种对一致性的要求也解释了我参观的工厂为何如此纪律严明：生产线等级森严，计划周密得如同军事行动。难怪富士康的正式名称是鸿海精密工业股份有限公司。
《纽约 时报》 2012年的一篇报道指出，苹果公司在iPhone生产的早期阶段需要招聘近9000名工业工程师。该公司分析师预计，在美国招聘这么多工程师需要9个月的时间。而在中国，他们只用了两周就完成了这项工作。大量优秀人才的涌入加快了设计和生产周期。正如蒂姆·库克曾经说过的那样：“在美国，你召集一群工具工程师开会，我甚至不确定能不能坐满整个房间。但在中国，人数多到足以填满好几个足球场。”
苹果和富士康在深圳发现的优势不仅在于能够满足其质量标准的工人：密集的工厂网络也提供了制造技术的灵活性。我采访的一位苹果前工程师指出，任何功能变更都会带来不可预测的需求。每年，苹果可能对iPhone最有价值的组件的来源地都有相当清晰的了解（例如，摄像头模块来自索尼；内存来自三星；芯片由台积电制造），但供应链下游总会有意想不到的情况发生。“新的设计总是需要新的组件或工艺，比如某种类型的粘合剂或尺寸略有不同的螺丝。”
因此，苹果公司不得不经常临时寻找供应商。“几乎每次，”这位工程师继续说道，“我们都是靠找个认识的人，再找个表亲，看看他能不能在深圳生产几十万颗新螺丝。”
在深圳周边短途车程内，几乎可以找到生产任何电子产品所需的一切。地理位置的优势带来了效率的提升。当需要开展工作时，公司可以将通常需要数周才能完成的协调工作，缩短为第二天早上召集所有相关供应商开会，只需几个小时即可完成。如果出现问题，附近有很多友好的工厂可以求助。“如果你遇到煤气泄漏，”一位美国硬件企业家告诉我，“你可以去借用邻居的设备，第二天再还回去。”
深圳的工人们通过组装智能手机、音乐播放器和其他电子产品积累了技能。没过多久，一些工程师和生产线经理就开始在华强北的塑料箱里翻找零件，琢磨着这些零件能用来做什么。这些零部件的性能逐年提升，正如《连线》杂志前主编克里斯·安德森所说的，这是“智能手机战争带来的和平红利”。数千亿美元的投资涌入智能手机供应链，使得摄像头、传感器、电池、调制解调器等电子元件的成本大幅下降。正因如此，我们才能将过去只有少数军事强国才能拥有的传感器装进口袋。
许多公司都受益于和平红利而发展壮大。事实上，深圳是众多中国最具活力企业的总部所在地，其中包括全球最大的电动汽车制造商比亚迪、全球最大的消费级无人机制造商大疆创新，以及如今深陷困境的全球最大电信设备制造商华为。电动汽车大量采用智能手机的电子元件；消费级无人机则大致是将智能手机的摄像头和传感器与螺旋桨重新组装而成。
深圳的魅力在于，它汇聚了世界上最具创造力的硬件工程师，他们置身于浩瀚的组件海洋之中。在数百万懂得组装电子产品的劳动力的支持下，苹果每年都在不断进步。这个蓬勃发展的生态系统催生了许多其他追随苹果脚步的产品，例如悬浮滑板、电动滑板车、虚拟现实头盔，谁知道接下来还会出现什么呢？
2017年我去中国报道科技新闻时，经常听到美国人说中国公司没有创新能力。他们说，中国只会抄袭和剽窃。硅谷有些人知道深圳有很多很棒的创新项目，但美国人普遍抱有居高临下的态度。
2023年我离开中国时，美国人对中国的看法已经发生了转变。很少有人再说中国没有发展出任何重要技术，因为中国已经成为电动汽车和清洁技术的主要生产国。人们的担忧取代了之前的轻蔑，因为中国的监控能力正在威胁美国国家安全，而其制造业产能也有可能吞噬西方企业。
我们仍然没有真正重视像深圳这样的工程实践社区，也从未真正对中国的技术能力发展情况产生过好奇心。
iPhone体现了中国稳步提升的科技水平。2007年，苹果公司几乎所有高价值零部件——显示屏玻璃来自美国、摄像头模块来自日本、内存芯片来自韩国、传感器来自德国——都从中国进口到深圳。中国贡献的主要是组装这些进口产品的劳动力，约占手机最终价值的4%。一位苹果前高管告诉我，在接下来的十年里，随着国产零部件的融入，iPhone的供应链变得越来越“红”，也就是说，中国零部件的使用量越来越大。到2017年iPhone X发布时，中国企业已经开始生产声学部件、充电器等零部件。模块和电池组。根据拆解分析，中国对 iPhone X 的贡献约占手机最终价值的 25% 。
在2010年代，中国催生了美国人眼中真正代表技术创新的数字平台。2017年，阿里巴巴和腾讯等科技巨头与字节跳动等新兴公司展开激烈竞争，争夺十亿中国互联网用户。阿里巴巴等电商公司举办了各种令人眼花缭乱的促销活动，甚至邀请泰勒·斯威夫特在上海举办演唱会，以刺激消费热潮。中国消费者是世界上最热衷于在线零售的群体之一；由于他们居住在物流网络发达的密集城市，平台能够快速送达商品。人们省略了西方的一些传统步骤，放弃了个人电脑、电子邮件和信用卡，转而通过智能手机，尤其是腾讯的微信应用，来管理生活。2017年，TikTok开始走红，鉴于世界上大部分挖矿服务器都位于中国，中国似乎在人工智能领域拥有强大的实力，甚至有可能主导比特币市场。
几年后，习近平重创了中国的大部分数字平台。他更倾向于重工业、高产出模式。他鄙视虚拟经济，谴责资本的“野蛮增长”，转而专注于工业发展。这意味着要将所有资源投入制造业。尽管在一些关键行业，特别是半导体和航空领域，中国制造业仍落后于西方，但在其他大多数领域，中国制造业已经迎头赶上。
中国在部署特高压输电线路、高速铁路和5G网络方面处于世界领先地位。中国制造商生产的机床——压铸机、钢压机、机械臂——质量已接近德国和日本的水平。他们在消费电子领域也击败了大多数其他亚洲竞争对手。华为、OPPO、vivo和小米等手机制造商充分利用了这一市场。苹果公司帮助构建了工人及零部件生态系统。到2025年，全球最大的手机制造商将是苹果、三星以及六家专注于发展中国家市场的中国公司。
中国品牌不仅生产大量低端消费品（电商平台上常见的廉价商品），也生产高端厨房用品和音响设备。然而，尽管中国工人生产了大量产品，但鲜有中国企业打造出引人注目的全球品牌。他们远远落后于日本企业。日本企业自上世纪70年代起，就创造了音乐播放器、游戏机、数码相机和袖珍计算器等全新产品类别，令全球消费者为之倾倒。在很大程度上，中国企业的成功在于以低成本生产优质产品。但我认为，他们也很有可能以优质产品而闻名。品牌往往与品质相辅相成，我预计未来十年中国品牌将获得广泛认可，就像“日本制造”的形象从劣质品转变为优质产品一样。
中国最显著的工业成就体现在清洁技术，也就是我们经济脱碳所需的可再生能源设备。到2025年，中国企业将主导太阳能价值链的各个环节，生产电动汽车所需的大部分大容量电池，并在风力涡轮机和氢电解槽领域占据主导地位。
然而，中国在一些行业仍然实力较弱。领导层对国家在飞机发动机和半导体技术方面仍然依赖西方感到不满。尽管中国的生物技术产业规模庞大，但中国制药企业尚未研发出重磅新药或疫苗。中国的大学也鲜少发表能够引起美国科学家重视的突破性论文。
事实上，中国在科学进步方面仍然相当薄弱。日本研究人员已获得二十多项诺贝尔科学奖，而中国科学家仅获得过一次诺贝尔奖。一位中国公民。如今，中国正投入巨资追求更卓越的科学。2019年，中国成为首个成功将探测车送上月球背面的国家；一年后，中国科学家实现了基于卫星的量子加密通信。中国航天局宣布，将在2030年前实现载人登月。这在太空领域远不及美国——美国早在60年前就已将宇航员送上月球——但这表明，中国正稳步投资于科学能力建设，使其有能力完成日益艰巨的任务。
这是中美两国截然相反的又一例证。美国人期待NASA、大学或研究实验室的科学家们带来创新。他们为发明创造的时刻欢呼雀跃：第一块太阳能电池、第一台个人电脑、第一次飞行。而在中国，科技创新则源于工厂车间，源于新产品规模化生产。中国在先进技术领域崛起的核心在于其惊人的实践学习能力和持续改进的创新精神。
当我们谈论技术时，应该区分三件事。首先，技术指的是工具。这些工具包括烹饪所需的锅碗瓢盆、刀具和烤箱。其次，技术指的是明确的指导。这些指导包括食谱、蓝图和可以写下来的专利。第三，也是最重要的一点，技术是过程知识。这是从实践经验中获得的熟练技能，而这种技能很难直接传达。让一个从未下过厨的人做煎鸡蛋这样简单的事情，即使给他一个漂亮的厨房和一份极其详细的食谱，他仍然可能搞砸。
我们也可以从中国对建筑的理念中看出其对过程知识的重视。这揭示了更深层次的东西。我对中国文化更感兴趣。我最喜欢的关于中国的书之一是比利时汉学家西蒙·莱斯（Simon Leys）的论文集《无用之殿》（The Hall of Uselessness）。在其中一篇题为《中国人对过去的态度》的文章中，莱斯探讨了中国建筑师的建筑技艺。
世界各地的建造者都曾试图对抗时间的侵蚀。古埃及和中世纪的欧洲用石头建造了宏伟的金字塔和教堂。正如莱斯所指出的，中国建造者的做法是顺应时间的流逝，使用极易腐烂、甚至脆弱的材料。中国建筑用木材建造寺庙，有时甚至用纸制作镶板，这种做法本身就蕴含着过时的必然性，需要频繁的修缮。“永恒不应存在于建筑之中，”莱斯写道，“而应存在于建造者之中。”中国建造者并没有使用最坚固的材料，而是拥抱短暂，以确保精神设计的永恒性。
这一理念的典范并非在中国，而是在日本的伊势神宫（或称伊势神宫）。伊势神宫是日本神道教中最神圣的神社。自公元690年首次建成以来，工匠们每隔二十年就会彻底重建其由木材和干草建造的神圣殿堂。2033年，神宫将迎来第六十三次重建。伊势神宫的殿堂由日本扁柏木建造，支撑着架高的地板，并覆盖着干草编织的屋顶。这些建筑采用了七世纪的技艺：不用钉子，只用木榫和榫卯连接。虽然木工榫卯是一门复杂的工艺，但其他部分的建造却十分简单。
这种仪式为何延续至今？部分原因在于神道教对精神复兴的信仰。此外，这些神社的建造风格仿照粮仓，供奉着农业之神，而粮仓每隔几十年就会腐朽。同时，这也关乎工艺知识的传承。二十年相当于一代人的时间，伊势神宫的守护者们一直致力于确保重建神社的知识能够代代相传。后代。环保作家江田纯子亲眼目睹了第六十二次重建，她听到一位老人对年轻人说：“下次这些任务就交给你们了。”
江田弘曾写过一篇题为《每二十年重建一次，使神社永存》的文章。神社工作人员制定的计划以世纪为单位：他们制定了长达两百年的种植计划，旨在种植足够的柏树，使附近的神社森林能够自给自足，而无需从日本其他地区运木材。他们的规划和仪式让我不禁思考，西方究竟放弃了多少工艺知识。2019年巴黎圣母院屋顶发生火灾，揭示了世界上关于大教堂建造的知识是多么匮乏。我敢打赌，用木材建造的伊势神宫，其寿命将比那些用石头建造的宏伟金字塔和大教堂更长。
拥抱过程知识意味着要从人身上寻找永恒的体现，而不是从宏伟的纪念碑中寻找。此外，我们不应将“技术”视为一系列炫酷的物件，而应将其视为一种鲜活的实践。这更接近中国和日本的做法。
如果日本工匠们为了传承七世纪寺庙的技艺付出了如此巨大的努力，那么我们又该如何维系我们所建立的庞大科技文明呢？这座木结构建筑远比现代汽车工厂简单得多，更不用说半导体制造厂了。我们现代人能否在不遵循工匠们的传统仪式的情况下，保存制造工艺的知识呢？
或许答案是：我们做不到。迷失方向的不仅仅是波音和英特尔。美国政府在重建伊势神宫的这段时间里，竟然忘记了一件与核武器材料同等重要的事情。国家核安全管理局发现，他们已经无法再生产用于引爆原子弹的机密材料“雾库”（Fogbank），因为他们没有妥善保存生产过程的记录，也没有妥善保存所有掌握相关知识的人员的记录。该技术已经停产。随后，美国国家核安全管理局（NNSA）花费了6900万美元重新学习如何生产这种材料。
蓝图很少能包含足够的信息，从而具有技术价值。试想一下，如果我们能将任何现代技术的详细制造说明传送回过去，会是什么景象？即使是罗马凯撒的首席战车工程师，即便拥有最详尽的T型车制造手册和精细的蓝图，也无济于事。同样，如果我们现在拿到英特尔处理器或ASML光刻机的生产说明，也未必能做出什么成绩。我并不为曾经费力组装宜家脚凳而感到骄傲。
流程知识难以衡量，因为它主要存在于人们的头脑中以及他们与其他技术人员的互动模式中。我们通常将这些无形知识称为诀窍、机构记忆或隐性知识。它们体现在像深圳这样经验丰富的劳动力队伍中。在那里，有人可能今年在一家iPhone工厂工作，明年就去竞争对手的手机制造商那里，然后创办一家无人机公司。如果深圳的工程师有了新产品的想法，很容易就能接触到热情的投资者网络。深圳是一个工程实践社区，工厂主、技术娴熟的工程师、企业家、投资者和研究人员与世界上经验最丰富的高端电子产品生产劳动力汇聚一堂。
硅谷过去也曾如此，但如今它缺少了产业链中的关键环节——制造业劳动力。这些工程实践社群的价值远大于任何一家公司或工程师。更确切地说，它们应该被视为技术生态系统。
美国人的想象力过于专注于工具和蓝图的创造。英特尔传奇前首席执行官安迪·格鲁夫在2010年一针见血地指出：美国需要减少对“创造的神话时刻”的关注，而更多地关注“规模化”。格鲁夫目睹了硅谷从发明和生产并重转型为只专注于发明和生产。他非常清楚，如果研发过程不再与生产过程相互学习，技术生态系统就会停滞不前。
美国确实希望复制深圳的成功模式，但它对深圳的成功充其量也只是略知皮毛。我的妻子，密歇根大学教授西尔维娅·林特纳（Silvia Lindtner）十多年来一直致力于研究深圳的科技生态系统。2015年，奥地利政府曾向她请教如何在阿尔卑斯山打造一个“深圳”；2016年，白宫邀请她就美国如何借鉴深圳的成功经验发表演讲。她和我一样，都认为这些机构误解了深圳的真正意义。他们仍然更关注个体发明家，而不是将其视为一个工程实践共同体。对发明的痴迷蒙蔽了硅谷对中国真正实力的认知。我认为，我们不应将工具和蓝图视为技术进步的最终目标，而应将其视为培养更优秀科学家和制造者的里程碑。将技术视为人与流程知识的结合，不仅更加准确，也增强了我们对自身所创造技术的掌控力。
将科技视为人，也有助于我们理解中美经济关系破裂的原因。在20世纪90年代，尤其是在2001年（中国加入世界贸易组织）之后，美国公司纷纷将制造业转移到中国。苹果公司在深圳的合作，助力深圳转型成为全球最具创新力的电子产品生产中心。然而，苹果股东的胜利却以美国的实力受损为代价。
美国制造业就业人数在1980年达到顶峰，为1900万人。2000年，仍有1700万人。但在接下来的十年里，制造业就业人数急剧下降，部分原因是中国的崛起，部分原因是技术变革，尤其是全球金融危机之后，到2010年，制造业从业人员锐减至仅1100万人。预计到2025年，美国制造业从业人员将达到约1300万人。
Breakneck
有时，美国精英阶层对制造业岗位的流失表现出一种异乎寻常的乐观态度。1993年，老布什总统的首席经济顾问迈克尔·博斯金曾戏谑道：“电脑芯片，薯片，有什么区别？” “美国可能会失去制造业”这一观点逐渐成为精英阶层的共识。这种共识将工会领袖以及少数持不同政见的经济学家描绘成多愁善感之人，因为他们抵制制造业外包。克林顿和小布什政府都没有阻止美国企业将生产业务转移到中国。如今，制造业的流失给美国带来了经济和政治上的毁灭性打击，这一点已显而易见。我们至今仍未完全理解它给美国在技术发展方面造成了多大的阻碍。
China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
美国许多历史悠久的公司都步履维艰。底特律的汽车制造商们几十年来一直勉强维持，如今在向电动汽车转型的过程中步履蹒跚。美国钢铁公司、通用电气和IBM都已不复往日辉煌。英特尔深陷产品延期和裁员的泥潭，从半导体行业的先驱沦为台积电的明显落后者。2017年，波音公司两架737 MAX客机相继坠毁后，该公司承诺将竭尽全力保障飞机安全。然而，2024年，又有一架737 MAX客机在空中发生舱门脱落事故。与英特尔一样，波音公司也在不断推迟早已计划好的产品的上市时间。
就连军工复合体也面临挑战。美国每年国防开支近1万亿美元，几乎相当于排名第二和第三的国家国防开支的总和。这项投资的回报如何？目前尚不清楚。俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后，乌克兰在短短几个月内就消耗掉了美国数年的弹药储备，而美国工厂一直难以扩大生产规模。战斗机的交付严重延误，成本也大幅超支。美国海军报告称，其所有舰艇和潜艇的建造进度都比原计划落后了一到三年。
Dan Wang
美国制造商并非全都陷入困境。特斯拉是美国汽车制造业的希望之星。半导体生产设备、医疗器械和农业设备等领域仍然涌现出许多领军企业。过去几年，美国制造业取得的巨大成功在于mRNA疫苗的生产，这些疫苗拯救了世界各地无数生命。然而，医药和制药领域的辉煌成就并未惠及更广泛的美国制造业，他们甚至连口罩和棉签等基本医疗用品都未能生产出来。
除了少数例外，美国的制造业基础已经从上到下锈蚀殆尽。为什么这么多制造商倒闭了？我认为，部分原因在于金融投资者的文化。华尔街更热衷于投资资本轻型企业：例如社交媒体和搜索引擎等数字平台，或是专注于设计而非笨重制造设施的芯片公司。如果不是特斯拉（其许多汽车产自上海），美国在电动汽车领域与中国的差距将会更大。而特斯拉的生存也堪称惊险。2018年，埃隆·马斯克表示，特斯拉在努力提高最终大获成功的Model 3的产量时，一度濒临破产。他称那段时期“极其痛苦”。现在看来，一家制造业领军企业融资如此艰难，无疑是对美国金融体系的控诉。金融化也与企业整合交织在一起。关于通用电气，一个广为流传的观点是，该公司已被金融体系所掌控。这种观点在波音公司身上体现得更为明显。曾经由痴迷于此的工程师运营安全性和质量方面，其领导层发生了转变，高管们更加注重为股东创造价值，而不是制造好的飞机。
To my parents
不过，我认为问题主要出在美国的政策制定者和企业高管身上，他们未能理解流程知识的重要性。
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美国制造商花了近三十年的时间才逐渐摆脱在中国开设众多工厂时积累的工艺知识。每关闭一家美国工厂，都意味着生产技能和知识的永久性流失。流水线工人、机械师和产品设计师纷纷失业；他们的供应商和技术顾问也同样举步维艰。整个美国工程实践社群瓦解，留下了被称为“铁锈地带”的地区。一些市长和州长曾试图阻止这股衰落的浪潮，但他们的努力却不断遭到经济学家和企业高管的嘲讽，这些人以全球化的名义追求低工资生产。时至今日，许多美国经济学家仍然怀疑制造业的特殊性，并坚信向服务型经济转型是不可避免的。
深圳等低工资产业生态系统成为美国工艺技术的巨大磁石。北京刻意避免效仿日本，后者将市场限制在美国公司之内；相反，中国更倾向于欢迎外国制造商来培训本国工人。中国经济开放程度的体现之一是，其出口很大程度上依赖于苹果和特斯拉等公司，而日本的出口几乎完全由本国企业推动。然而，在积累了足够的工艺技术之后，深圳不仅成为美国理念的实践者，也成为新型电子产品的创新者。
我不确定北京是否将依靠美国公司成为制造业领导者作为其宏伟战略的一部分。但在某些情况下，中国政府显然明白他们正在这样做。2018年，北京对特斯拉做了一件前所未有的事：允许该公司全资拥有其位于上海的工厂。此前，任何汽车制造商……想在中国生产汽车的公司必须与国内企业合作。因此，日本、德国和美国的汽车公司为了进入这个庞大的市场，都乖乖地与国有企业合作。中国政府希望这些国内企业能够学习丰田和奔驰等公司的经验，并达到它们的质量水平。但实际上，由于研发上过度依赖外国合作伙伴，中国汽车制造商的发展十分缓慢。
特斯拉的出现震动了中国电动汽车市场。中国商界开始用“网络钓鱼”来形容特斯拉在中国的所作所为。其理念是，将一家实力强劲的新公司引入国内市场，会促使中国企业加快发展步伐。而事实也的确如此，中国企业迅速提升了自身竞争力。2019年，特斯拉汽车开始在上海超级工厂下线，比亚迪的销量下降了11%，利润更是暴跌了42%。但特斯拉最终却为整个市场带来了益处。正如在美国一样，特斯拉大胆的品牌策略激发了消费者对电动汽车的认知，使其不再仅仅被视为高性能高尔夫球车。此外，特斯拉还投资建设了中国的汽车制造生态系统，其他汽车制造商也利用这些资源来生产更好的汽车。比亚迪同样从中受益，在2023年创下了利润新高，并成为全球最大的电动汽车制造商。甚至连中共中央机关报也对特斯拉为中国企业带来的“网络钓鱼效应”表示赞赏。
正如深圳立讯精密（苹果公司的新代工厂之一）创始人王颖所言，“与凤凰同飞，方能造就杰出的鸟儿”。这又是深圳这个资本主义国家给共产党带来的又一个教训：市场竞争往往会降低价格，提高质量。
苹果和特斯拉投入巨资培训中国工人生产其产品，并从中赚取了巨额利润。类似的例子在中国其他工程实践领域、温州等鞋服生产中心以及医疗行业也以不同程度地存在。中国的制造业从业人员遍布各地，从无锡和苏州到贵州省正安县山区，其中最令人惊叹的当属吉他制造。总体而言，中国的制造业从业人员超过一亿，约为美国的八倍。如此庞大的劳动力群体正在推动新工艺知识的创造。
专注于制造业使中国在与美国的科技竞争中拥有另一项优势。它可以等待美国科学家完成基础研究，然后由中国企业接手生产。太阳能产业的发展本质上就是如此。贝尔实验室发明了第一块太阳能电池，德国公司生产太阳能生产设备。北京将太阳能列为“战略性新兴产业”，吸引了中国企业蜂拥而至。中国企业购买德国设备，并展开激烈竞争，力求生产出最高效的太阳能电池。到2010年代中期，中国企业不仅掌握了所有德国设备的制造方法，还掌握了整个太阳能价值链的生产能力。过去十年太阳能发电成本的暴跌，与其说是源于美国的强项——科学突破，不如说是源于中国的强项——高效生产。受益的不仅是气候，还有中国的国力。
科学当然至关重要。中国在芯片和航空领域仍然处于劣势，部分原因是这些行业的科学复杂性远高于太阳能。并非所有技术都能通过对制造工艺的迭代调整而改进，但很多技术的发展都遵循同样的逻辑。当众多公司在利润微薄、竞争异常激烈的环境中从事类似工作时，它们便会建立起像深圳这样的工程实践社区。这些工厂永远不会像苹果或特斯拉那样拥有令人艳羡的品牌光环。每天，数百万工人前往工厂，积累技术工艺知识。这才是中国科技实力的基石。
中国之所以能成为科技超级大国，是因为它推崇流程知识以及维系这些知识的工程实践社群。坚守流程知识有助于我们抵制关于中国崛起的错误观念。中国共产党乐于宣称，中国科技产业的发展是北京英明规划的结果。而美国政府也通过指责中国政府作弊（包括不公平补贴）或窃取（尤其是网络窃取）来夸大其重要性。
中国政府对经济持续不断的干预所带来的结果充其量也只能说是模棱两可。经济研究表明，接受中国补贴的企业平均而言生产率增长较低。习近平大力推动产业发展，不仅引发了与美国的贸易战，也引发了与许多发展中国家的贸易战。中国在科技领域的成功并不能令人信服地证明一个明智的国家能够规划未来。当国家滥用权力——强迫外国公司转让技术、向特定行业提供巨额补贴、打压一家公司扶持另一家公司——往往适得其反。旨在扶持中国国有汽车制造商的强制性技术转让协议，反而剥夺了它们投资自身创新能力的动力。中国汽车行业的成功主要来自像比亚迪这样的私营企业，该公司此前没有任何外国合作伙伴，直到特斯拉的独资企业进入市场，才迫使比亚迪提升自身实力。
美国历届政府都对中国的一系列贸易做法颇有微词：强制技术转让；操纵汇率以压低出口价格；向本土企业提供补贴和优惠信贷条件，有时甚至资助其海外扩张；以及最令人担忧的未经授权的网络入侵，或由国家主导的旨在窃取美国商业机密的网络攻击。总而言之，这些做法为外国企业营造了一种往往不公平且有时令人费解的贸易环境。
作为回应，特朗普第一届政府发动了贸易战。但它不仅仅对中国商品加征关税，还扩大并部署了旨在削弱中国企业的新型技术管制措施。我当时在北京报道特朗普这场科技战的影响，记得自己经常醒来就琢磨着他又会在推特上提到哪家中国公司。中国科技巨头们发现自己被列入了美国一些鲜为人知的政府机构维护的制裁名单，而这些机构连美国官员都很少听说过。一旦被列入名单，美国资金或技术就会被切断，想要从名单上移除就难上加难。
Introduction
我认为美国政府反击中国的重商主义贸易做法是正确的。但我也认为，在特朗普混乱的领导下，美国政府的反击大多收效甚微。尤其令我怀疑的是特朗普政府（以及后来的拜登政府）基于安全考量的观点：美国仍然掌控着许多技术咽喉要道，只是政府疏忽大意，任由中国窃取技术优势；而且，如果美国政府加强出口管制，就能从一个无法匹敌美国创新能力的国家手中夺回技术领先地位。
Each time I see a headline announcing that officials from the United States and China are once more butting heads, I feel that the state of affairs is more than just tragic; it is comical, too, because I am sure that no two peoples are more alike than Americans and Chinese.
特朗普政府的确打压了中国企业，但其方式是让美国公司（尤其是半导体公司）被视为不可靠的供应商。此前，中国企业为了打造具有全球竞争力的智能手机或无人机，会采购市场上最好的零部件，而这些零部件往往产自美国。当无法再采购美国产品时，这反而促使中国企业开始尝试那些他们以前想都不敢想的国内供应商。
A strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing veneration of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness, overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition. Chinese and Americans are pragmatic: They have a get-it-done attitude that occasionally produces hurried work. Both countries are full of hustlers peddling shortcuts, especially to health and to wealth. Their peoples have an appreciation for the technological sublime: the awe of grand projects pushing physical limits. American and Chinese elites are often uneasy with the political views of the broader populace. But masses and elites are united in the faith that theirs is a uniquely powerful nation that ought to throw its weight around if smaller countries don’t get in line.
我在硅谷工作时，人们常说知识传播的速度就像啤酒一样快。工程师们喜欢互相交流解决技术难题，知识就是这样扩散的。他们会被竞争对手公司挖走，有时甚至会被敌对国家挖走。从长远来看，国家很难垄断其主导地位。任何技术。如果真有这种可能，那么美国仍然会落后于英国或德国，而英国和德国才是更伟大的科学创新者。
I came to this view as a Canadian who has spent almost equal amounts of time living in the United States and China. To me, these two countries are thrilling, maddening, and, most of all, deeply bizarre. Canada is tidy. I sometimes find myself relaxing as soon as I cross into its borders. Drive around America and China, on the other hand, and you’ll see people and places that are utterly deranged. That’s not a reproach. These two countries are messy in part because they are both engines for global change. Europeans have a sense of optimism only about the past, stuck in their mausoleum economy because they are too sniffy to embrace American or Chinese practices. And the rest of the world is either too mature or too young to match the impact of these two superpowers. It is Americans and Chinese—Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, Wall Street, and Beijing—that will determine what people everywhere will think and what they will buy.
美国政府对本国仍然拥有的科技实力沾沾自喜。美国公司花了二十年时间在中国建立工程实践社群，这些社群由一群撸起袖子实干、努力克服日常瓶颈的人员组成。阻止他们的进步并非易事；恰恰相反，美国的政策反而有可能加速这一进程。迄今为止，中国公司已经成功地绕过了大多数技术限制进行创新；与美国政策制定者预测的急剧崩溃不同，一些公司甚至保持了健康的增长速度。
They are not the only two countries in the world that matter. Far from it. But if we don’t understand how the United States and China function and interact, then in large part we won’t quite understand many of the biggest changes in the world. The two countries are reconfiguring the international order and each other too. Seeing China more clearly—its dazzling strengths, appalling weaknesses, and everything in between—also helps us to see America more clearly.
二十年前，外国公司为深圳等区域的初期发展播下了种子。如今，中美关系恶化。这是否意味着像深圳这样的工程技术聚集区将会衰落？答案是肯定的，但这种情况不会持续太久。
To understand China, we must start in the country’s most riveting city: Beijing.
将制造业生产从中国撤离的过程将是一个漫长而曲折的过程。国际公司不断告诉我，他们仍然不愿彻底放弃在中国这个依然举足轻重的生产中心和庞大市场。苹果公司正竭尽全力在越南和印度建立生产基地。但这将是一个循序渐进的过程，因为这些国家的基础设施和劳动力需要一段时间才能跟上。根据苹果公司最新的供应商报告（2023年发布），其前200家供应商中有156家在中国设有生产基地。其中72家位于广东省深圳市，这一数字与美国、越南和印度三国工厂的总和相当。
Beijing enthralls not because it is nice but because it isn’t. By most measures, life in Beijing is dreary. It is in China’s arid north, where dust storms descend every so often upon the city’s twisting alley homes, dating from imperial times, or gray apartment blocks, built in the Soviet style. In the last decade or so, the state has bricked up many of its liveliest sites, including its many bars and roadside barbecues, turning the city into a no-fun zone. Want to take your life into your hands? Try braving the cars that speed through Beijing’s gigantic roads. Much like Moscow or Pyongyang, its avenues feel like they were built for army parades rather than for normal life. Really, everything that can go wrong in urban design has gone wrong in Beijing.
与此同时，习近平坚持要保留制造业。中国共产党可能是技术最发达的政党。这是世界上最执迷不悟的机构。这个工程技术国家一心想在跨国公司抢占先机之前，取得技术上的领先地位。
But the capital is also a city of gravity and substance. Beijing attracts many of China’s smartest people, including scientists, technology leaders, and those seeking to advance in the Communist Party. The po-faced members of the Politburo don’t fool around. Greatness isn’t only a slogan for them: It’s a full-on, life-or-death pursuit. Beijing, for the rest of this book, stands in as the Communist Party and the central government. China’s leaders are driven by intense paranoia, doing everything they can to control the future.
2023年，习近平在江苏省（与广东一样，是制造业重镇）考察时指出，“实体经济是国家经济的基础，是财富创造的根本，是国家实力的重要支柱。”他继续说道，实体经济是“人类生产、生活和发展”的基础。他反复强调，中国需要优先发展实体经济，也就是制造业，而不是虚拟经济或金融经济，后者有时被官方媒体称为“虚拟”经济。官方研究人员常常将金融化与制造业空心化并列批评。
My parents and I emigrated from China to Canada when I was seven. During high school, we moved to the woodsy suburbs of Philadelphia (where my mom and dad still live). After going to New York for college and Silicon Valley for work, I returned to China to investigate its technology developments. I learned to appreciate something vital: The country is always in motion. Living in Hong Kong, Beijing, and then Shanghai was a good education not only because these were China’s most prosperous economic zones. For six years, I lived through a period of economic dynamism that gave way to smothering political repressiveness. I experienced top leader Xi Jinping’s ongoing mobilization of the country for great-power competition. I tracked the expanding web of US restrictions on Chinese tech companies, as well as their struggle to escape from American restraints. And I endured all three years of Xi’s pursuit of zero-Covid, which started impressively until it plunged the country into broad misery.
习近平的雄心壮志不仅限于制造业。或许用“完美主义”来形容他的观点更为贴切。Gavekal Dragonomics 的研究主管安德鲁·巴特森（Andrew Batson）发现，中国工业和信息化部部长在2024年曾夸耀中国拥有“全面”的产业链，因为中国在联合国划分的419个工业产品类别中均有生产。这真是典型的中国式夸耀。
The Chinese state builds gleaming public works and doesn’t flinch from locking up ethnic minorities or locking down whole cities. Too many outsiders see only the enrichment or the repression. Living there puts you face to face with both a sustained rise in living standards and the authoritarian pulses emanating out of Beijing. It became no contradiction for me to appreciate that things are getting better and getting worse. I saw how China is made up of both strong entrepreneurs and a strong government, with a state that both moves fast and breaks things and moves fast and breaks people.
巴特森还发现，习近平在制造业问题上的措辞发生了转变。此前的中国领导人曾谈到产业升级的重要性，这有时意味着限制对中国不再需要的劳动密集型或高污染行业的投资。而习近平则宣称，中国的目标是全面完备化，这意味着即使是“低端产业”也不应该迁出中国。习近平并不遵循经济逻辑——即生产会向劳动力成本更低的国家转移（美国和其他高收入国家或多或少已经接受了这一逻辑），而是不希望产业不断转移。
I was the technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, an investment research firm serving a financial audience. We were a small team of analysts managed by editors who used to be economics journalists. My task consisted of writing research notes for hedge funds, endowments, and other asset managers hungry for China analysis. Dragonomics research wasn’t focused on particular companies but rather on more ambitious macro questions about the direction China was heading and what it means for the world. Portfolio managers aren’t shy about getting to the heart of the matter, asking me: Can China’s political system really breed tech giants? Will advanced manufacturing succeed when the rest of the world is throwing up trade barriers? How does a faltering economy affect Beijing’s designs on Taiwan?
因此，2021年发布的第十四个五年规划要求：制造业在经济中的占比保持不变。制造业已占中国GDP的28%，远高于德国的21%和日本的20%，更不用说美国和英国等去工业化经济体（二者占比均在10%左右）。习近平多次表示，他无意放弃制造业而转向服务业。在权威讲话中，习近平列举了“某些西方国家”放弃实体经济而追求虚拟经济的例子。不难猜到这些西方国家指的是哪些。习近平还宣称，“实体经济是一切的基础……所以我们绝不能去工业化。”
If I didn’t offer good answers, the conversations could feel like a Socratic beating rather than a collegial chat. Though hedge fund managers can be obnoxious, I found conversing with them to be valuable. Folks in finance easily turn philosophical, pushing me to sharpen my views on important questions. I worked hard to decipher where Xi was taking China, which meant reading party texts, no matter how arcane, and visiting different regions, no matter how obscure.
这就是工程型国家的本质。它不仅热衷于建设公共工程，也热衷于发展制造业。工程型国家对经济学家的抵制就像对律师的抵制一样轻易。经济学家可能会援引大卫·李嘉图的比较优势理论，以此作为允许生产转移的理由。工程型国家会因此衰落，因为它对失去制造业感到震惊，毕竟从事服务业似乎更酷。
By traveling as often as possible to smaller cities—some that are little more than urbanized industrial parks—I grasped something that most Americans, and even many Chinese, do not: Going to little-known cities in China is fun. Wherever I went I found amazing food, bizarre sights, and memorable people. I saw that China had greater dynamism than acknowledged by most headlines about the country, which fixate on Beijing’s political machinations. Just imagine what the rest of the world would miss if they understood the United States exclusively through developments from Washington, DC.
迄今为止，中国尚未感受到放弃低端制造业（服装、鞋类等）的经济压力，部分原因是中国仍有许多像贵州这样劳动力成本低廉的贫困省份。但随着关税不断攀升，这种趋势可能难以持续。如果习近平成功，这意味着其他发展中国家（无论在亚洲、非洲还是世界各地）将无法攀上中国主导的产业阶梯。发达国家也有理由感到担忧。由于中国体量庞大，它拥有雄厚的财力，可以瞄准任何它想要的行业，以求获得技术领先地位。小国不得不有所取舍，就像丹麦在风能产业和韩国在存储芯片领域所做的那样。
Everywhere I felt China’s breathless and, at times, reckless speed. I tried to capture the country’s shifts and tussles, buffeted by a pandemic and a darkening international environment, by writing an annual letter. These were a journal of sorts to record everything I observed and felt. In 2020, I wrote about reading every Xi Jinping speech in Seeking Truth, the Communist Party’s flagship theory magazine; in 2021, the differences between Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai; and in 2022, what it was like to wander through the mountains of Yunnan province—whose north is historic Tibet and whose south feels like Thailand—during the worst period of zero-Covid.
中国想要拥有一切。
I thought constantly about the United States. It wasn’t only that the Trump administration was prosecuting a trade and technology war; Beijing holds America steadfastly in its gaze. China’s leaders are ready to learn from Europe, Japan, Singapore, and many others, sure. But they have looked up to the United States more than any other country, benchmarking themselves against the world’s preeminent power.
中国的政治领导层长期以来对西方统治怀有仇恨，并抱有一种幻想，认为如果中国拥有科学、技术和工业生产，它就能取得成功。自清朝在鸦片战争中战败以来，每一位中国领导人都对科技落后感到愤懑。维持工业基础是确保中国不再重蹈覆辙的最佳保障。这一理念贯穿了中国现代领导人，从国民党领袖孙中山，到他的门生蒋介石，再到后来的共产党统治者，莫不如此。邓小平启动了旨在摆脱社会主义束缚的伟大工程，提出了“四大现代化”——农业现代化、工业现代化、国防现代化和科技现代化。近年来，习近平也日益强调要使中国在科技领域实现先进化和自给自足，尽管他提出的往往是一些空泛而谈的术语，例如“创新驱动发展战略”或受马克思启发而提出的“新生产力”。
It is almost uncanny how much the United States and China have been complementary of each other. It was no accident that the two countries established, for a few decades, an economic partnership that worked tremendously well for American consumers and Chinese workers. But on a political level, these two systems are a study in contrasts. While the United States reflects the virtues of pluralism and protection of individuals, China revealed the advantages and perils that come from moving quickly to achieve rapid physical improvements.
对科技的痴迷催生了中国或许是最有趣的网络运动。在中国互联网审查严密、任何团体都难以组织起来的环境下，有一群知识分子发出了自己的声音。他们是一群松散联系的作家，自称为“产业党”。他们的观点可以概括为：民族国家之间残酷竞争；科技是这场达尔文式竞争的决定性力量；因此，国家必须围绕科技发展而组织起来。他们出于爱国情怀，认为共产党是世界上最有能力实现这一目标的政治组织。
Over the past four decades, China has grown richer, more technologically capable, and more diplomatically assertive abroad. China learned so well from the United States that it started to beat America at its own game: capitalism, industry, and harnessing its people’s restless ambitions. If you want to appreciate what Detroit felt like at its peak, it’s probably better to experience that in Shenzhen than anywhere in the United States.
我花了几个月时间研读了一些关于产业党的奠基性文献。其中一些有英文译本，但大多数仍保持原貌，很多内容都是发表在网络论坛上的檄文。这些文章往往带有强烈的攻击性，抨击自由派、中国民主的倡导者，有时甚至抨击那些怀念毛泽东时代的左派人士。他们将自己与那些被贴上“感伤党”标签的浪漫主义者划清界限。
As China emulated America’s past successes, the US government got busy undermining its own strengths. A procedure-obsessed left conspired with a thoughtlessly destructive right to constrain the government. Neither the left nor the right allows the state to deliver essential goods expected by the public. The Biden administration may have ushered through historic bills on industrial policy, but executive agencies were so obsessed with procedural concerns that little building actually took place before voters reelected Donald Trump, who has threatened to cancel many of these projects. The United States is still a superpower that is able to outclass China on many dimensions. But it is also in the grips of an ineffectual state where people are increasingly concerned with safeguarding a comfortable way of life.
产业党的骨干成员背景各异。党内最年长的成员王晓东在一次会议上介绍了党的名称。2011 年，王毅发表了一篇网络文章。他曾接受过经济学家的训练，后来却成为了一名激进的民族主义者：自 20 世纪 90 年代以来，他撰写了多部措辞严厉的书籍，呼吁中国不要盲目地遵循西方（主要是美国）的价值观，最终出版了畅销书《中国不快乐》，该书直言不讳地呼吁对美国主导的秩序采取更具对抗性的方式。
Americans used to love the great opportunity that China represented. Nearly a century ago, they were wartime allies, with ties cemented by cultural connections and business relationships. Today, natural amity is being crowded out by mutual mistrust. Beijing and Washington are competing with each other economically, technologically, and diplomatically, casting a pall on those of us connected to both countries. In 2022, Beijing’s censors blocked the personal website where I publish my annual letters. The Great Firewall tends to block access to big platforms like the New York Times, not little sites like mine. That week, I had to seek out the Canadian consul general to ask whether I needed to organize my departure from China. Beijing had already detained two Canadians in response to Canada’s arrest of a prominent Chinese businesswoman. Many Americans who previously traveled to China for business and pleasure have lost their enthusiasm for visits.
钟庆曾在日本接受电气工程师培训，并在中国网络论坛上崭露头角，逐渐形成了自己的观点。他2005年出版的 《洗碗还是学习？ 》一书呼吁对经济实行全面技术官僚控制，以发展科技。这意味着放弃低端制造业，转而大力推进战斗机和半导体的快速研发。近年来，产业党思想最活跃的贡献者是一位笔名为深圳宁南山的作家，他自称是深圳的中产阶级，可能在一家与政府有关联的智库工作。深圳宁南山的文章完全符合中国政府的正统观点，主张对科技投资采取渐进式方法，重点发展半导体，以打破美国对该技术的垄断。这使他成为产业党内较为温和的政治人物。
We are now in an era where the two countries regard each other with suspicion, and often animosity. Like China, the United States is able to move fast and break people, dealing tremendous brutality at home and abroad when it feels threatened. A paramount question of our times is whether hostility between China and the United States can stay at a manageable simmer. Because if it boils over, they will devastate not only each other but also the world.
或许工业党思想传播最有趣的方式是通过一部名为《临高晨星》的网络小说，该小说自2009年起由一群作者连载。这是一个架空历史项目，设想五百名当代中国人穿越时空回到1628年的海南临高县（海南岛是中国最南端的省份）。他们的目标是什么？在明朝引发一场工业革命。马千祖是该系列早期创作的作者之一，也是中国互联网上最引人注目的人物之一。2011年，马千祖推动工业党走向爆发式增长：在中国历史上最严重的火车相撞事故发生后，他强硬地……他主张国家应继续推进高铁项目（而国家也确实这样做了）。马云也是一位具有独立思考能力的思想家。近年来，他揭露了政府的浪费性开支，并批评了俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的行为。这些不同寻常的立场有时使他成为审查机构的眼中钉。
The best hedge I know against heightening tensions between the two superpowers is mutual curiosity. The more informed Americans are about Chinese, and vice versa, the more likely we are to stay out of trouble. The starkest contrast between the two countries is the competition that will define the twenty-first century: an American elite, made up of mostly lawyers, excelling at obstruction, versus a Chinese technocratic class, made up of mostly engineers, that excels at construction. That’s the big idea behind this book. It’s time for a new lens to understand the two superpowers: China is an engineering state, building big at breakneck speed, in contrast to the United States’ lawyerly society, blocking everything it can, good and bad.
这些作者中没有一人会公开承认自己是产业党的正式党员。他们只是关系松散的博主，彼此之间偶尔交流。马千祖拒绝接受产业党的标签，王晓东也放弃了一些早期的民族主义观点。近年来，他表示中国尚未做好与西方断绝关系的准备。其中一些作者在学术界和智库工作，这表明他们与政策制定者有着直接联系；他们的一些观点被中国官方媒体转载。有趣的是，其中一些人曾在日本留学，并呼吁中国效仿其战时的“敌人”。许多人都是军事迷，对各种主流战斗机的参数了如指掌。在他们看来，没有重工业解决不了的问题。
Breakneck is the story of the Chinese state that yanked its people into modernity—an action rightfully envied by much of the world—using means that ran roughshod over many—an approach rightfully disdained by much of the world. It is also a reminder that the United States once knew the virtues of speed and ambitious construction. Traversing dazzling metropolises and gigantic factories, Breakneck will illuminate the astounding progress and the dark underbelly of the engineering state. The lawyerly society has virtues, too, to teach China. Each superpower offers a vision of how the other can be better, if only their leaders and peoples care to take more than a fleeting glance.
读这些作品时，我不禁思考，“产业党”是否只是对旧思想的现代演绎。这些作家带有未来主义倾向，他们批判自由主义的繁文缛节，并要求全面动员经济力量来发展科学技术。
Breakneck
他们难道只是在重新发明法西斯主义吗？工业党想要使社会去政治化，以便让技术官僚统治，利用宣传机构激励人们追求科学和制造业。这是一个以男性为主的团体，他们嘲讽多元化。他们并不鼓吹征服，但他们渴望一个中国凌驾于其他任何国家之上的未来。工业党往往不引用广泛的思想家，只推崇毛泽东或斯大林等击退侵略者、建立工业基础的强硬领导人。这是一种对科技力量的崇拜。
Chapter 1 Engineers vs. Lawyers
工业党的大部分成员都支持这项工作。《三体》是刘慈欣创作的科幻三部曲。这部作品是近几十年来中国最成功的文化输出之一，不仅赢得了美国读者的赞誉，还被Netflix改编成了高成本的电视剧。我自己也深深地被这部三部曲所吸引。故事的设定是：一位毛泽东文化大革命的受害者对人类感到极度厌恶，于是邀请外星人征服人类文明；当她的行动被发现后，各国政府只有几十年的时间来准备应对这场入侵。
Silicon Valley can be an amazingly drab place. The peninsula south of San Francisco has natural beauty, with rolling hills and coastal views, but you strain to see them beyond so many corporate parking lots. Mountain View and Menlo Park are bizarrely full of rug shops, so when I walk through the towns that host the headquarters of AI leaders and some of the richest companies in the world, I often find myself wondering, “This is the beating heart of our technologically accelerating civilization?”
刘洋的故事不仅跨越星系，更跨越一千八百万年。他创造了令人震惊的画面：一个形似水滴的银色探测器摧毁了地球的大部分太空舰队；一个质子大小的粒子却包含着一个完整的世界；一片星空在单个观测者眼中闪烁不定。主要人物在战略抉择中挣扎，需要运用推理和欺骗，而任何一个错误的举动都可能不仅对个人造成致命打击，更会危及整个人类。
Each time I flew from California to Hong Kong or Shanghai, I felt almost unnerved to encounter functional infrastructure. Going from the airport into a subway (rather than an Uber) is an outstanding way to be welcomed to Asia. I would take a moment to savor a clean station, brightly lit, with trains running every few minutes, which would drop me off at a downtown filled with vibrant commercial areas—another feature that San Francisco lacks. Life in the Bay Area, an economic dynamo in America’s richest state, can feel awfully dysfunctional. San Francisco has been unable to serve its homeless population, and even many wealthy people have to keep a generator for their extraordinarily expensive houses because the state can’t keep the lights on.
与此同时，《三体》三部曲的道德观却建立在极其阴暗的世界观之上。一方面，这部三部曲颂扬了人类在生存斗争中展现出的创造力。为了战胜外星威胁，刘亦菲描绘了人类对技术官僚权威的彻底臣服。科学家和工程师是最终的决策者，不给人道主义者、胆小鬼或感伤主义者留下任何空间。政府被迫服从于少数天才的意志，而这些天才毫不犹豫地牺牲数百万人的生命。刘亦菲三部曲的核心思想是，唯一的残酷真理是生存，而敌对的文明则如同“在黑暗森林中被阴险之火照亮的血染金字塔”。刘亦菲一次又一次地让那些为了生存而不择手段的一方最终获胜。
The contradiction of the Bay Area, this red-hot center of corporate value creation that is surrounded by dysfunction, fuels the inquiry of this book. When I departed from Silicon Valley for China in 2017, it felt clear that the United States had lost something special over the past four decades. While China was building the future, America had become physically static, its innovations mostly bound up in the virtual and financial worlds.
不难理解为什么产业党的拥护者们将刘的著作奉为经典之作。此外，它或许还可以作为理解工程国家意识形态的指南。
Looking at these two countries, I came to realize the inadequacy of twentieth-century labels like capitalist, socialist, or, worst of all, neoliberal. They are no longer up to the task of helping us understand the world, if they ever were. Capitalist America intrudes upon the free market with a dense program of regulation and taxation while providing substantial (albeit imperfect) redistributive policies. Socialist China detains union organizers, levies light taxes, and provides a threadbare social safety net. The greatest trick that the Communist Party ever pulled off is masquerading as leftist. While Xi Jinping and the rest of the Politburo mouth Marxist pieties, the state is enacting a right-wing agenda that Western conservatives would salivate over: administering limited welfare, erecting enormous barriers to immigration, and enforcing traditional gender roles—where men have to be macho and women have to bear their children.
中国接手了许多美国乐于摆脱的污染产业。在某些情况下，这甚至是字面意义上的摆脱：稀土金属其实并不稀有。然而，加工稀土金属需要消耗大量的能源和水，同时还会向大气中排放致癌物。西方世界很少有国家能够承受加工稀土金属的后果，这就是为什么中国控制了这条供应链。
China is an engineering state, which can’t stop itself from building, facing off against America’s lawyerly society, which blocks everything it can.
大多数低端制造业的情况并没有那么糟糕，但美国却同样乐于放弃它们，几乎没有意识到这会对国家造成多大的损害。我承认，很难将上世纪80年代美国电视制造业的衰落与过去十年波音和英特尔的困境直接联系起来。但如果我们把技术生态系统看作是工程实践的社群，那么随着工艺知识的流失，工厂倒闭加速，导致生产问题和更多人失业，也就不足为奇了。同样，中国工人从组装iPhone发展到生产其中一些最有价值的零部件，也合情合理。一个国家失去了工艺知识，另一个国家却获得了整个产业。
Engineers have quite literally ruled modern China. As a corrective to the mayhem of the Mao years, Deng Xiaoping promoted engineers to the top ranks of China’s government throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By 2002, all nine members of the Politburo’s standing committee—the apex of the Communist Party—had trained as engineers. General Secretary Hu Jintao studied hydraulic engineering and spent a decade building dams. His eight other colleagues could have run a Soviet heavy-industry conglomerate: with majors in electron-tube engineering and thermal engineering, from schools like the Beijing Steel and Iron Institute and the Harbin Institute of Technology, and work experience at the First Machine-Building Ministry and the Shanghai Artificial Board Machinery Factory.
美国改变了政策方向：它希望制造业岗位回流。但如何实现这一目标却极其不明朗。特朗普时期的关税政策和拜登时期的补贴政策都未能取得决定性成效。事实上， 2022年中国对美国的商品出口额接近历史最高水平，与2018年特朗普政府对中国商品加征关税时的水平持平。
Xi Jinping studied chemical engineering at Tsinghua, China’s top science university. For his third term as the Communist Party’s general secretary starting in 2022, Xi filled the Politburo with executives from the country’s aerospace and weapons ministries. In the United States, it would be as if the CEO of Boeing became the governor of Alaska, the chief of Lockheed Martin became the secretary of energy, and the head of NASA was governor of a state as large as Georgia. China’s ruling elites have practical experience managing megaprojects, suggesting that China is doubling down on engineers—and prioritizing defense—more than ever.
美国如何才能做得更好？首先，它可以更好地了解中国是如何成长为科技超级大国的。如果国会议员继续使用最敷衍的解释（“他们只是窃取了我们所有的知识产权”），那么美国就永远无法理解积累工艺知识的重要性，也无法迫切地弥补自身的技术缺陷。
What do engineers like to do? Build. Since ancient times, the emperors have tried to tame the mighty rivers that sweep away not only farmland, but also imperial reigns. In modern times, new public works—roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, power plants, entire new cities—are the engineering state’s solution to any number of quandaries. Since 1980, after Deng’s reforms began, China has built an expanse of highways equal to twice the length of the US systems, a high-speed rail network twenty times more extensive than Japan’s, and almost as much solar and wind power capacity as the rest of the world put together. It’s not only the government that is fixated on production; the corporate sector is made up of overactive producers too. A rough rule of thumb is that China produces one-third to one-half of nearly any manufactured product, whether that is structural steel, container ships, solar photovoltaic panels, or anything else.
与此同时，美国人应该多培养一些谦逊。关于他们自身的技术能力。美国越早将中国视为值得研究的同行，就能越早制定出新的成功策略。目前，中国企业在电动汽车电池生产方面领先于世界其他国家。那么，为什么不允许其中一些企业像他们正在尝试的那样，在密歇根州等地建厂，并迫使他们放弃技术呢？美国政府可以强制中国电池制造商转让知识产权，以换取进入美国庞大汽车市场的机会。
When Chinese point to new cities that shimmer at night with drone displays, or metropolises connected to each other by a glistening high-speed rail network, their pride is real. Call it propaganda of the deed, but one way to impress a billion-plus people is to pour a lot of concrete.
美国应该发展哪些类型的技术也值得深思。它真的应该全力投入人工智能、加密货币以及其他被共产党嘲讽为“虚构经济”的领域吗？还是应该发展那些早已被美国精英阶层冷落、不受美国投资者青睐的重工业？
The United States, by contrast, has a government of the lawyers, by the lawyers, and for the lawyers. Five out of the last ten presidents attended law school. In any given year, at least half the US Congress has law degrees, while at best a handful of members have studied science or engineering. From 1984 to 2020, every single Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominee went to law school, but they make up many Republican Party elites as well as the top ranks of the civil service too. By contrast, only two American presidents worked as engineers: Herbert Hoover, who built a fortune in mining, and Jimmy Carter, who served as an engineering officer on a nuclear submarine. Hoover and Carter are remembered for many things, especially for their dismal political instincts that produced thumping electoral defeats.
现实情况是，美国永远不可能再次成为比中国更大的制造业国家。美国人口远少于中国，工资水平和生活水平预期更高，加上美元作为全球储备货币的地位，都使得这一目标更难实现。实际上，很难想象美国人能够忍受深圳或河南工人的工作习惯：每天在流水线上工作八小时，在规定的时间去食堂吃饭，晚上六个人挤在一间宿舍里。而中西部地区的制造业工人则喜欢开着皮卡车回家。
Lawyers have so many tools available to delay or prevent building. You don’t just feel the difference going from the lawyerly society to the engineering state: You saunter, tread, and amble upon its works. Americans no longer manufacture well or build public works on reasonable timelines. US infrastructure is falling into a pitiable state while China is building new systems of subways, bridges, and highways. Over the past three decades, while Chinese manufacturers have been going from strength to strength . . . well, let’s just say that American automakers and chipmakers haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory. China’s political system is geared toward delivering monumental projects, such that the slightest economic tremble is enough to push Beijing to announce a mammoth plan for new public works. That’s one reason that the phrase “housing crisis” has evoked, over the past several years, a collapse of home prices for Chinese and spiraling unaffordability for Americans.
一切的起点在于认识到美国科技领域出现了严重问题。太多人忽视了制造业的战略重要性。而解决之道在于重建重视工艺知识的工程实践社群。这意味着要努力提升制造业的各个环节：培训工人，并激励制造商重新学习大规模生产。
Lawyers enable some of the success of Silicon Valley. You can’t build companies worth trillions without legal protections. But lawyers are also part of the reason that the Bay Area and much of the country are starved of housing and mass transit. The United States used to be, like China, an engineering state. But in the 1960s, the priorities of elite lawyers took a sharp turn. As Americans grew alarmed by the unpleasant by-products of growth—environmental destruction, excessive highway construction, corporate interests above public interests—the focus of lawyers turned to litigation and regulation. The mission became to stop as many things as possible.
这种情况听起来有点不可思议，但如果iPhone真的被制造出来了呢？如果硬件之都不是深圳，而是美国，那么美国城市——比如底特律、克利夫兰或匹兹堡——或许会被誉为世界硬件之都。消费级无人机、悬浮滑板、电动汽车电池和虚拟现实头盔等后续创新产品，很可能都出自美国公司之手。工程师们无需从库比蒂诺飞越太平洋前往他们的巨型工厂。他们可以在家附近迭代产品改进，并将最新产品贴上“加州设计，宾夕法尼亚组装”的标签。
As the United States lost its enthusiasm for engineers, China embraced engineering in all its dimensions. Its leaders aren’t only civil or electrical engineers. They are, fundamentally, social engineers. Emperors didn’t hesitate to entirely restructure a person’s relationship to the land, ordering mass migration into newly opened territories and conscripting the people to build great walls or grand canals. Modern rulers are here, too, far more ambitious than the emperors of the past. The Soviet Union inspired many of Beijing’s leaders with a love of heavy industry and an enthusiasm to become engineers of the soul—a phrase from Joseph Stalin repeated by Xi Jinping—heaving China’s population into modernity and then some.
美国至少必须恢复其工业实验室衍生产品所需的生产能力，从而实现规模化生产。否则，如果继续重视科学突破而非大规模生产，美国可能会再次失去整个产业——就像当年发明太阳能光伏板却依赖中国生产一样。美国喜欢颂扬天才创新者的灵光乍现。但我认为，由大型企业生产产品比由科研实验室宣称发明更有价值。否则，美国科学家辛辛苦苦搭建的通往技术领先的阶梯，最终却会被中国企业抢占先机。
Modern China has many tools of social control. Within living memory, most Chinese residents worked inside a danwei, or work unit, which governed one’s access to essentials like rice, meat, cooking oil, and a bicycle. Many people still live under the strictures of the hukou, or household registration, an aim of which is to prevent rural folks from establishing themselves in cities by restricting education and health care benefits to their hometown. Controls are far worse for ethnoreligious minorities: Tibetans are totally prohibited from worshipping the Dalai Lama, and perhaps over a million Uighurs have spent time in detention camps that attempt to inculcate Chinese values into their Muslim faith.
深圳终有一天会失去昔日的光辉。或许，这个过程已经开始了。2021年我最后一次到访深圳时，路过华强北电子市场，发现摊贩们卖的化妆品比卖的电缆和电容器还多。硬件行业已经变得过于同质化，迫使华强北的创业者们将目光转向中国日益增长的护肤品需求。很难想象眼霜与习近平抵制去工业化的目标相符。然而，事实的确如此，一家官方媒体甚至以“华强北用电脑芯片换口红”为题报道了这一趋势。
The engineering state can be awfully literal minded. Sometimes, it feels like China’s leadership is made up entirely of hydraulic engineers, who view the economy and society as liquid flows, as if all human activity—from mass production to reproduction—can be directed, restricted, increased, or blocked with the same ease as turning a series of valves.
这是否表明，即使是工程技术也无法抵挡消费者的需求，最终也屈服于时代的洪流？那一刻……简而言之，华强北再次回归以电子产品为主的销售模式，中国工业产品的浪潮正席卷全球。过度投资和对去工业化的坚持，暂时保护了中国免遭美国“铁锈地带”那样的不幸命运。
Can a government be too efficient? Six years in China taught me that the answer is yes, when it is unbounded by citizen input. There are many self-limiting aspects of a system that makes snap decisions with so little regard for people. This book reveals good things that the engineering state does: running functional cities, building up its manufacturing base, and spreading material benefits pretty widely throughout society. But I also lived through things that no other state would have attempted, like holding on to a zero-Covid strategy until it drove the country mad. The fundamental tenet of the engineering state is to look at people as aggregates, not individuals. The Communist Party envisions itself as a grand master, coordinating unified actions across state and society, able to launch strategic maneuvers beyond the comprehension of its citizens. Its philosophy is to maximize the discretion of the state and minimize the rights of individuals.
如果工程师们只专注于现实世界的建设，中国的情况会更好。但他们的野心远不止于此。不幸的是，北京从根本上来说是由一群社会工程师组成的。中国科技实力乃至其全球地位面临的主要威胁之一，正是几十年前一项灾难性决策的后果——即进行人口改造。
Engineers often treat social issues as math exercises. Does the country have too many people? Beijing’s solution was to prohibit families from birthing more than one child—the subject of my fourth chapter—through mass sterilization and abortion campaigns, as the central government ordered in 1980. Is the novel coronavirus spreading too quickly? Build new hospitals at breathtaking speed, yes, but also confine people to their homes, as Wuhan, Xi’an, and Shanghai did to millions of people over weeks, which I cover in the fifth chapter. There is no confusion about the purpose of zero-Covid or the one-child policy: The number is right there in the name.
第四章 一个孩子
China’s economy isn’t immune to engineering either. When Beijing grew uncomfortable with the debt levels of real estate developers in 2021, the state forced so many of them into distress that it triggered a prolonged slump in homebuyer confidence. Around the same time, Xi hurled a series of regulatory thunderbolts at China’s high-flying tech companies, including Didi, the country’s largest ride-hailing company, and Ant Financial, the payments company owned by Jack Ma, China’s best-known entrepreneur. Chinese tech founders (and their investors) were astonished to discover that Xi Jinping could erase a trillion dollars from corporate valuations over the course of just a few months. The leadership thought it was straightforward to reorient the nation’s tech priorities away from consumer platforms and toward science-based industries, like semiconductors and aviation, that serve the nation’s strategic needs. Beijing took years to appreciate how its actions had scared the daylights out of entrepreneurs and investors.
人口控制的追求塑造了中国现代工程国家的本质。20世纪80年代，邓小平和北京领导层认为，提拔工程师进入中央政府是对毛泽东错误统治的一种反击。然而，他们却被一种误入歧途的科学主义所束缚，这种科学主义运用直线预测来论证，如果中国不减少人口，将会出现灾难。在过去半个世纪里，工程国家推行的独生子女政策造成的社会痛苦超过了其任何其他政策。如今，当国家试图扭转其影响时，它再次运用了社会工程的手段。
When you travel around China, it’s staggering to see how much the engineering approach has accomplished over the past four decades. Then there’s the part you can’t see. As impressive as China’s railways and bridges may be, they carry enormous levels of debt that drag down broader growth. Manufacturers produce so many goods that China’s trade partners are now grumbling for protection. The social-engineering experiment known as the one-child policy has accelerated the country’s demographic decline. And China’s economy would be in better shape if Beijing hadn’t triggered an implosion of its property sector, smothered many of its most dynamic companies, and persisted in trying to push out the coronavirus.
2013年秋，习近平在北京中共中央总部召集全国妇联领导班子。一年前，习近平刚刚就任中国最高领导人。他身着党的制式工作服——拉链风衣，神态轻松和蔼。他告诉这个官方代表妇女事务的党内组织，中国的经济发展取决于性别平等。这将使“数亿女性能够承担更大的责任”。妇女联合会的领导们围坐在他身边，一边认真聆听一边做笔记。
Well-to-do people professionals who thought themselves secure in their jobs in finance or consumer internet faced a rude shock when Xi’s displeasure with these sectors caused rippling job losses. No US president has so much ability to overturn the lives of the rich. By contrast, in China, many pillars of society are liable to blow over when winds from Beijing shift direction, contributing to a sense of precarity among even the country’s elites. Since China doesn’t have many legal protections, not even its rich are well protected.
十年后，习近平在新一届联邦领导班子会议上发表讲话。他瘦了一些，头发也更花白了，但其他方面基本没变：他穿着同样的职业装，坐在同样的房间里，听众们认真地做着笔记。虽然他依然面带和蔼的微笑，但讲话的语气却更加坚定。他不再鼓励女性在经济发展中追求自我实现，而是建议她们先组建家庭。
Engineers go hard in one direction, and if they perceive something isn’t working, they switch with no loss of speed toward another. They don’t suffer criticism from humanist softies. Change in China can be so dramatic because so few voices are part of the political process. To a first approximation, the twenty-four men who make up the Political Bureau (the highest echelon of the Communist Party, usually shortened to Politburo) are the only people permitted to do politics. Once they’ve settled questions of strategy, the only remaining task is for the bureaucracy to sort out the details. But when it makes mistakes, it can drag nearly the entire population into crisis.
习近平在2023年向围坐在他周围的女性描绘的愿景听起来相当传统。女性的角色是让丈夫开心，照顾长辈；最重要的是，她们应该生儿育女。“我们应该，”习近平说，“培育一种新的婚姻和生育文化。” 这意味着要将党的教条强加于“年轻人应该如何看待恋爱、婚姻、生育和组建家庭”之上。《经济学人》对此次会议的标题直言不讳：“中国希望女性待在家里生儿育女。”
To capture both the traumatic aspects of the engineering state and its capacity to produce great pride, I like to think of a hypothetical question: What was the worst year to be born in modern China?
2023年初，中国宣布自1960年（毛泽东发起的大跃进导致数百万人饿死的那一年）以来首次出现人口下降。虽然下降幅度不大，但这仅仅是人口下滑的开始，未来几十年人口下降的幅度将逐年扩大。预计到2100年，中国人口将减少一半，降至7亿。中国的生育率正在急剧下降。官方公布的（当然也肯定有所夸大的）新生儿数量甚至低于最悲观的预测。2019年，中国新生儿数量为1500万；四年后，这一数字下降到900万。而就在几年前，联合国还称这一数字低于“低生育率情景”。 2024年，中国结婚人数为600万，仅为十年前的一半。如今，中国家庭平均一生生育1个孩子，远低于维持人口稳定所需的2.1个孩子。
A strong contender, I believe, is 1949, the year Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic. A person born that year—let’s call her Lu—would live through several of China’s utopian experiments, which curdled into terror campaigns led by the state. Lu would be born into a country torn up by Japan’s invasion and a civil war, but hopeful about Mao’s promise of communism. Around age ten, Lu would suffer some degree of food shortage as she lived through Mao’s scheme to get industrialized quick. That was the Great Leap Forward, when tens of millions perished from agricultural collectivization, quack agronomy, natural disasters, and Mao’s order to melt down household tools for the metal, all leading to the sort of mass starvation that forced people to forage tree bark to survive. At age eighteen, Lu might have just missed her chance to attend college as Mao shut down higher education. “Rebellion is justified,” he told students while launching the Cultural Revolution. “Bombard the headquarters,” he instructed youths while sending them into the countryside.
2023年5月，习近平抛开政治惯例，坚持到底。习近平第三次当选中国最高领导人。与此同时，他还打破了另一项惯例：将女性排除在中共最高领导层之外。几十年来，政治局25名成员中至少有一名女性。她们常常被委以党内最艰巨的任务：吴仪负责中国加入世界贸易谈判，并处理了2003年的非典疫情；孙春兰负责监督新冠疫情封锁措施的实施。在男性成员有时平庸的情况下，吴仪和孙春兰都凭借其卓越的能力脱颖而出。在第三个任期内，习近平将政治局成员缩减至24人，取消了原本分配给女性的唯一一个席位。通过将女性排除在中国的政治领导层之外，习近平很可能是想树立一个榜样。
If Lu decided to have a child after the age of thirty, she would have run into the one-child policy. Over the policy’s three-and-a-half-decade duration, China conducted nearly as many abortions, according to official figures, as the present population of the United States. If Lu had given birth at age twenty, her child might have attended college in 1989. That spring and summer, students led protests throughout the country, most prominently in Beijing. By June, Deng Xiaoping declared martial law and deployed the army to mow down students from the country’s most elite colleges. A few years after the killings around Tiananmen Square, China’s economic boom began in earnest. But as Lu turned seventy and entered the twilight of her life, she would feel one last spasm of a state-led terror campaign: lockdowns in the pursuit of zero-Covid. Depending on whether Lu lived in an unlucky city, she might not have been able to leave her residence for weeks.
如今，女性的身体已成为中共中央政治局男性主导的政治凝视的对象。习近平政府除了推行传统的生育观念外，还对同性恋群体进行了打压。生育问题并非首次被政治化：毛泽东鼓励生育，因为他认为这可以阻止帝国主义的入侵。这也不是第二次：邓小平推行了一套残酷的人口控制制度。如今，人口调控政策第三次摇摆不定，在习近平的领导下，又回到了鼓励生育的轨道上。
But change the year of birth by a decade and outcomes can shift spectacularly.
毛泽东并非工程师出身。他曾是北京大学的图书管理员，后来参与创建了中国共产党，之后又成为军阀。1949年中华人民共和国成立后，毛泽东的地位几乎被神化。他将大量时间用于研读文学和哲学，把国家治理的细节交给周恩来、邓小平、陈云等技术官僚出身的副手。毛泽东在军事领导和诗歌方面的天赋，在他喜爱反复吟诵的一句通俗口号中得以体现：“人多，力大”。
Someone born in 1959 would have no memory of famine. Call this luckier citizen Yao. By the time he turned eighteen, Mao would have died, and Yao could have earned a spot in university just as Deng was reopening the schools. As he turned forty and entered the prime of his career, he might have established a business that capitalized on China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Also around then, if he were an urban resident, Yao would catch China’s housing privatization. As the state moved to dismantle socialism, it offered homes to urban workers for a song. It was one of the greatest wealth transfers in history: If Yao was among the elites who owned real estate in Beijing and Shanghai, which grew into two of the world’s most expensive cities, he could have become prodigiously wealthy.
1949年，中国是世界上人口最多的国家。经历了数十年的战争，这个新生的国家并不清楚境内究竟有多少人口。官员们估计中国人口可能在五亿左右。1953年的人口普查结果显示，人口接近六亿，这几乎是一件值得庆祝的事情。
Not everyone born in 1949 suffered terribly and not everyone born in 1959 lived comfortably. But the engineering state is characterized by peculiarly jerky rhythms, in which the decade of birth might determine whether a person stumbles into great wealth or a mass grave.
毛泽东将庞大的人口视为力量的源泉。他一生近半的时间都在与国民党和日本人作战，担任军事领导人。在宣布建立共产主义国家仅仅一年后，他就派兵进入朝鲜，主要目的是对抗新近装备核武器的美军。他对原子弹袭击的淡然态度令世界各国领导人感到震惊。1954年，毛泽东向贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁吹嘘说，他不惧怕美国的核打击。他宣称，帝国主义者根本不可能拥有足够的炸弹来消灭坚韧不拔的中国人民。三年后，他告诉震惊的尼基塔·赫鲁晓夫：“我们不应该害怕原子导弹。无论爆发什么战争，常规战争还是核战争，我们都将胜利。”毛泽东宣称，他已做好牺牲一半人口来对抗帝国主义者的准备。“岁月会过去，我们会努力生育比以往任何时候都多的孩子。”赫鲁晓夫后来切断了苏联对中国核计划的支持，部分原因是他对毛泽东对待世界末日的态度感到担忧。
The generation of Chinese born in the 2000s are somewhere in between these extremes. College graduates have, in recent years, contended with record high youth unemployment while their parents mourn falling property values. For one group of online nationalists, nicknamed “little pinks,” China can’t stop winning. The collapse of the property sector was good and necessary, they contend, because investment is going into manufacturing. And if China’s broader economy is weak, they say that China’s economic woes are caused by the United States.
卡尔·马克思曾批评托马斯·马尔萨斯关于人口过剩的理论。毛泽东追随马克思的思路，认为一个国家人口过多是荒谬的。他在1949年写道：“中国人口众多是一件好事。即使中国人口成倍增长，也完全有能力找到解决办法。解决办法就是提高生产率。像托马斯·马尔萨斯这样的西方资产阶级经济学家提出的粮食增长无法跟上人口增长的荒谬论点，不仅早已被马克思主义者在理论上彻底驳斥，而且也被苏联和中国的现实彻底粉碎了。”
The second argument is just ridiculous. Yes, tariffs and technology controls have hurt Chinese firms. But what is the US government’s damage to China’s economy next to the Politburo’s shock tactics? That the United States is able to hobble China’s growth is believable only inside the country’s highly censored information environment.
并非所有其他国家领导人都同意这一观点。当毛泽东思考文学和哲学时，邓小平却要集中精力发展经济。邓小平和其他国家领导人认为，如果国家无法控制人口，五年计划就难以实施。他们成功说服毛泽东接受一些计划生育政策。在整个20世纪70年代，毛泽东批准了一项计划生育政策，其中包括一系列激励和罚款措施，旨在鼓励晚婚和扩大避孕措施的普及。
But the little pinks have a line of argument that tickles me. “Look at those Americans,” a few say, “who have no high-speed rail or gleaming skyscrapers like we do. Their only skill is blocking themselves, which they are now doing to us.” Little pinks are wrong to say that the United States is powerful enough to tank China’s economy; they’re not wrong that the United States blocks itself.
但毛泽东性情多变。有时他会听取他人的意见；有时，他又会反抗他们的约束。在毛泽东发动文化大革命之前，中国人口已超过七亿。毛泽东发起的持续不断的煽动引发了长达十年的政治动荡。在文化大革命的高峰期，工人团体之间就左翼理论展开激烈的争论，暴徒在群众集会上殴打他们认定为反革命分子的人，大部分学校停课停工，以便人们响应毛泽东的革命号召。这场动荡在1976年毛泽东去世后结束。到那时，国家已是一片混乱。
The year 2008 offers a direct comparison between California’s speed and China’s speed. That year, California voters approved a state proposition to fund a high-speed rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles; also that year, China began construction of its high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. Both lines would be around eight hundred miles long upon completion.
文化大革命的受害者包括绝大多数基础政府职能。任何像全国人口普查这样有组织的活动都成了笑柄。邓小平、陈云（经济政策制定最高官员）和其他高层领导人知道中国人口众多，但对实际数字却一无所知。领导层猜测人口可能超过九亿。当统计部门估计到1978年底人口已接近十亿时，领导层震惊不已。人口众多不再是值得庆祝的事情。如此庞大的人口数量威胁着邓小平的现代化改革。
China opened the Beijing–Shanghai line in 2011 at a cost of $36 billion. In its first decade of operation, it completed 1.35 billion passenger trips. California has built, seventeen years after the ballot proposition, a small stretch of rail to connect two cities in the Central Valley, neither of which are close to San Francisco or Los Angeles.
中国一位杰出的工程师提出了一个听起来极其理性的解决方案。宋健是一位导弹科学家，精通数学和控制理论。他提出的补救措施是独生子女政策。
The latest estimate for California’s rail line is $128 billion. Why does it cost so much? Partly because some politicians have demanded that the train add a stop in their district, forcing the line to take a more tortuous route through an extra mountain range. And partly because California’s rail authority prefers to tout the number of high-paying jobs it is creating rather than the amount of track it has been laying. The first segment of California’s train will start operating, according to official estimates, between 2030 and 2033. Which means that the margin of error for estimating when a partial leg of California’s high-speed rail will open is the same as the time it took China to build the entire Beijing–Shanghai line.
宋建体型相当魁梧，鼻子也很大。宋健梳着背头，下巴鼓鼓的，显得格外引人注目。在学术会议上，他经常发表主旨演讲，说话时带着尖细的口齿不清，脸上总是挂着笑容，粗壮的双手也总是充满活力地挥舞着。如果说宋健看起来有些自鸣得意，那他的确有理由感到沾沾自喜：很少有其他科学家的观点能得到中国最高领导人的认可。在政治影响力方面，宋健或许可以与阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦相提并论，爱因斯坦写给白宫的那封信激发了美国研制原子弹的决心。
The United States wasn’t always like this. American mayors and governors used to love attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies. These are now few and far between. American cities have broadly failed to build adequate housing or infrastructure. What they do complete—a public bathroom, a bus stop, or, my goodness, a subway station—arrives embarrassingly late or over budget. Americans live today in the ruins of an industrial civilization, whose infrastructure is just barely maintained and rarely expanded.
宋先生1931年出生于山东省的一个农村家庭。山东是中国人口第二大省，位于中国北部。宋先生童年时期，日军登陆山东，该省后来成为战争中遭受破坏最严重的地区之一。宋先生在日占区长大，十几岁时加入了共产党的八路军，白天服役，晚上上学。他是高中里唯一一个考上大学的人。1953年，他获得了一个更加难得的机会——前往苏联留学。
Once upon a time, America, too, had the musculature of an engineering state, building mighty works throughout the country: lengthy train tracks, gorgeous bridges, beautiful cities, weapons of war with terrible power, and missions to the moon. George Washington was a general, the first of many national security types who appreciated the value of building. As a young army officer, Dwight Eisenhower spent two months driving, or, more precisely, juddering, from coast to coast on unpaved roads. As president, he built the Interstate Highway System. When the United States had surging population and economic growth through the nineteenth century, political elites agreed that its vast territories needed canals, rails, and highways. Some of the leading figures in the Progressive Era embraced social engineering—and they conducted enough eugenics experiments to prove it.
在莫斯科国立大学，宋接触到了令人兴奋的新兴领域——控制论。这门数学学科是二战期间涌现的众多新兴领域之一，其他领域还包括运筹学和计算机科学。诺伯特·维纳1948年出版的《控制论》一书风靡一时，并非因为书中充斥着大量的方程式，而是因为它那引人入胜的副标题：“动物与机器中的控制与通信”。其核心思想是发展一种数学方法，通过将系统的输出反馈到算法中，实现对复杂系统的持续优化，从而控制这些系统。控制论研究的是技术或生物系统的调节和控制。它占据了一个思想上的绝佳位置：其前提本身就极具吸引力——吸引了“机器智能”和“系统分析”等本身就极具吸引力的附属术语——同时，其结构本身又具有一种内在的模糊性，使其在理论上能够巧妙地避开反驳。这是一个可能会暂时沉寂，但永远不会完全过时的概念。1956年达特茅斯会议创造了“人工智能”一词，部分原因是对控制论的回应；马丁·海德格尔声称哲学正在消亡，而控制论将成为它的继承者。
China today resembles the United States of a century ago while it was proving itself to be a superpower. But America’s construction boom slowed down after the 1960s. What happened next? The lawyers.
苏中关系破裂后，宋于1960年返回北京。此后，他对控制论始终抱有浓厚的兴趣。在北京，宋被任命为第七机械制造部（负责火箭研制的国家机构）的首席科学家之一，参与了中国潜射弹道导弹的研发工作。
In the 1960s, parts of the United States had grown into a frightful place. Oil platforms discharged petroleum into the sea, a foul smog settled over cities, and factories leaked so many chemicals that even rivers combusted. Urban planners rammed highways through urban neighborhoods. Legal discrimination segregated people by race and blocked them from exercising the right to vote. The public soured on the idea of broad deference to US technocrats and engineers: urban planners (who were uprooting whole neighborhoods), defense officials (who were prosecuting the war in Vietnam), and industry regulators (who were cozying up to companies).
宋不仅是一位才华横溢的科学家，他还精通政治手腕，善于运用政治影响力。他师从当时中国最著名的科学家钱学森，钱学森曾被美国驱逐出境，后参与了中国核武器的研发。宋白天研究导弹制导系统，晚上则与钱学森合著教科书《工程控制论》。他的名气之大，以至于在文化大革命期间，他的家遭到洗劫。由于宋偶尔与外国科学家交流，一些学生指控他从事间谍活动，周恩来对此感到震惊，于是将他和一些其他顶尖科学家转移到戈壁沙漠的中国卫星发射基地，以保护他们的安全。
Students at elite law schools, especially Yale and Harvard, sprang up to act. Students founded environmental organizations around the rallying cry of “Sue the bastards!” (referring to government agencies). Through the 1970s, both the American left and the right worked harmoniously to constrain government effectiveness. Liberal activists like Ralph Nader declared themselves to be watchdogs of government, constantly filing lawsuits. Ronald Reagan returned the compliment when he replied, “Government is the problem, not the solution.” The lawyerly society grew out of a necessary corrective to the United States’ problems of the 1960s. Unfortunately, it has become the cause of many of its present problems.
像宋健这样的军事科学家在社会主义政权下构成了一个享有政治特权的阶层。国家没有强迫他们进行革命，反而赋予他们制造炸弹和导弹的权力。共产党对军事科学家的尊重远胜于社会科学家，后者关于经济学或社会学的言论常常触怒毛泽东。在20世纪50年代，毛泽东曾毫不留情地打压一位主张人口控制的经济学家。军事科学家在政治上也比大多数大学教授更有影响力，后者很难获得党内高层的关注。宋健的特权包括与外界进行学术交流，以及使用当时中国为数不多的先进计算机之一。他和许多其他军事科学家一样，享有与外界进行学术交流的特权。科学家们拥有政治特权，可以随意涉足他们喜欢的任何知识领域。
As a fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, I peered at the lawyerly society from within one of its high temples. The law students I got to know are smart, friendly, and most of all, ambitious. They are good at climbing prestige ladders—joining a law review board as a student and clerking for a federal judge after graduation. Yale Law students mostly lean left, but there are also many conservatives among them. Case in point: J. D. Vance. Though the political views of law students may twist in unexpected directions, we should keep in view that they are entwined most firmly around a pillar of personal ambition.
当时，全世界都笼罩在对环境灾难的焦虑之中。像保罗·埃利希（《人口爆炸》的合著者，1968年出版）这样的自然科学家，以及像罗马俱乐部（1972年出版了《增长的极限》）这样的组织解释说，随着全球人口超过地球的“承载能力”，人类正走向介于生活水平逐渐下降和人类彻底灭绝之间的境地。西方科学家尤其担忧人口众多且贫穷的中国和印度。当毛泽东去世后，人口控制的讨论才得以展开，而宋永基当时仍在设计导弹。
More than any other group in the United States, lawyers are afforded license to be generalists, permitted to stomp into whichever intellectual realm pleases them. “American aristocracy,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, “is not composed of the rich . . . but occupies the judicial bench and the bar.” Lawyers have become even more powerful since Tocqueville wrote those words in 1833. In recent decades, lawyers have been able to muscle out economists even in economic policymaking. The Biden administration was staffed by many graduates of Yale Law, who were willing to ignore the logic of the invisible hand. Instead, they roll up their sleeves to perform surgery on the American economy, one case at a time, devising a subsidy scheme for one corporation or bringing an antitrust case against another. Lawyers create so many complications that the rules governing everything from health care and housing to banking have become incomprehensible.
一次海外之行，聆听了环境末日论者的言论，使宋先生确信中国需要采取激进措施来控制人口。1978年，他从北京飞往赫尔辛基参加控制论会议，会上他听到了当时一些自然科学家关于灾难的流行观点，甚至有人提出了预测世界末日年份的理论。宋先生后来写道，他听着这些言论“异常兴奋”。
The American courtroom is a battlefront to resolve political questions, in which judges are enlisted to rule on questions that most other countries leave to voters or regulators. When a political cause can’t be won through the electoral process, lawyers sometimes seek a victory through the courts. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the American left pursued a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy that conservatives have revealed themselves to be no less capable at playing.
他回到北京后，从导弹部召集了几位科学家来研究人口问题。这是一项挑战，因为中国上一次人口普查是在1964年，没有人真正知道当时的人口规模。他们只能依靠不精确的人口统计推断，最终得出两个结论：
There are reasons to be happy for lawyers to have an outsized presence in American society. They are reliable conversationalists at cocktail parties, for example—much better than engineers or economists. More seriously, they help to maintain America’s civic-mindedness and its commitment to laws. Many of them do important work: facilitating people’s access to bankruptcy, divorce, or immigration services; helping secure civil rights; and working to protect wildlife and clean water. When the White House acts out of line, we hope that the judiciary will restrain it.
首先，如果中国的人口增长不受控制（每名妇女生育 3.0 个孩子），那么到 2050 年，中国人口将达到 30 亿，到 2080 年将超过 40 亿。The first is an elevation of process over outcomes. In American government and society, designing new rules and committees have so often become the substitute for thinking hard about strategy and ends.
- 其次，中国的自然资源意味着存在一个最佳人口规模。宋在模型中代入了不同的变量。系统分析计算包括：中国耕地面积；水资源量；农业、工业和服务业预期增长的长期趋势。模型结果表明，中国的最佳人口规模不超过七亿。
Lawyers have much more scope with the law to stop something rather than create something. Before a government agency can build anything—from simple things like a bike lane to more complex projects like California’s high-speed rail—it ties itself down with mountains of procedure. The agency has to check so many boxes because it knows that a lawsuit could derail that bike lane if people are able to convince a judge it didn’t study environmental problems hard enough. After exhaustive research and review, it is no wonder that little ends up built. Americans are left with decaying infrastructure, little new construction, and a deep sense that nothing is working.
Though the lawyerly society corrected the problems of the past, it has produced two pathologies that weaken the United States today.
While engineers envision bridges, lawyers envision procedures. In a seminal paper titled “The Procedure Fetish,” University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley outlines how the federal government requires an agency to “conduct every conceivable study, ventilate every option, engage every identifiable stakeholder, and weather the most stringent judicial review before any of its actions, however trivial, could take effect.” In the lawyerly society, a more rigorous process is the solution to any number of quandaries. To deal with a new problem, it designs another procedure, which usually entails longer bureaucratic deliberation, greater public discussion, and more intensive judicial review.
如今看来，这些论断简直是无稽之谈。它们处处存在缺陷。宋永康写道：“到下个世纪下半叶，中国人口将达到45亿，与当今世界总人口持平。而且人口还会永远增长下去。”只有工程师才会相信这种直线式的分析，仿佛人口可以以恒定的速度增长。宋永康完全没有意识到，随着经济增长和教育水平的提高，生育率可能会下降——而邻近的东亚国家早已意识到这一点。他假定中国的资源储量是固定的，完全忽略了技术变革或邓小平摆脱计划经济政策的举措可能提高农业生产力的可能性。讽刺的是，这种机械论的思维方式使宋永康成为一名糟糕的控制论专家，因为他的模型无法动态地响应反馈。
It’s not just the government. America’s problem is the lawyerly society. The United States is unusual among Western countries for having so many lawyers: four hundred lawyers per hundred thousand people, which is three times higher than the average in European countries. Since lawyers are everywhere, proceduralism has reached everywhere, including universities and corporations. Anyone working in these today has seen how procedures become an end in themselves, such that people grow obsessed with their logic and forget about the outcome. Because who can keep the goal straight after the seventh monthly committee meeting?
在其他任何情况下，这些计算都可能被视为无关紧要的练习而被搁置一旁。但当时是上世纪70年代，中国最高领导层无需外国人指点，便已意识到国家正面临经济困境。地点就在北京，邓小平和陈云设想，只要遵循科学，四个现代化就能拯救中国。而那位科学家正是宋坚，他深受政治体制的认可和信任。当宋坚向中国领导层保证，人口轨迹可以像导弹轨迹一样得到有效控制时，他们听取了他的意见。
The other problem of the lawyerly society is a systematic bias toward the well-off. Lawyers are too often servants of the rich. They help wealthy homeowners block construction projects or get creative with their taxes. It is sometimes puzzling to follow along intellectual property cases, many of which seem to be a thrilling game invented for lawyers. American judges have to deal with bewildering disputes, like hedge funds pursuing sovereign governments on debt payments. Litigation offers endlessly tantalizing possibilities for settling scores. And motivated parties are willing to pay top dollar for superstar lawyers. Lawyers aren’t just defenders of the rich; many of them are the rich. “On Wall Street, Lawyers Make More Than Bankers Now” was a headline from the Wall Street Journal in 2023. “Pay for Lawyers Is So High People Are Comparing It to the NBA” claimed the New York Times in 2024.
人类学家苏珊·格林哈尔格在她那本杰出的著作《独生子女》中追溯了宋永康对独生子女政策的影响。在政策会议上，宋永康和他的精英科学家团队利用中国最先进的计算机进行计算，以此来论证他们的主张。那些对独生子女政策持怀疑态度的人，用算盘或手持计算器进行人口预测。宋健则用机器在方格纸上精确地绘制出预测曲线；而其他小组则只能手工画出参差不齐的曲线。这根本不是一场公平的较量。军方科学家在各个方面都完胜他们的学术对手。
America’s dysfunctions are not obstacles for the rich. Though New York City has barely been able to extend its system of mass transit, real estate developers have been able to build skinny high-rises for the wealthy. Though California can’t tame wildfires, the rich might be able to afford their own private firefighting services. The poor—those buried under paperwork trying to apply for SNAP benefits, who have to take dilapidated public transit and who would most benefit from new construction—are the ones who suffer most from the lawyerly society’s failures.
即使没有宋坚，中国可能也会推行激进的人口控制政策。20世纪70年代末，中国领导人认为某种形式的人口控制是必要的。宋坚从科学的角度论证了中国可以允许夫妇只生育一个孩子。一些群体对此表示反对：地方党委书记认为农村居民难以接受；社会科学家指出这将给退休养老带来问题；军队则担心征兵问题。
I am not saying, as Shakespeare’s Dick the Butcher snipes in Henry VI, Part 2, that “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” The system of checks and balances has been, and is, fundamental to the success of the United States. Since the government is capable of wielding terrible power, judges and the law are often the last and best hope against abuses. But the United States will not remain a great power if it caters primarily to the wealthy. Its failure to build enough has hurt working people and makes the country feel like a low-agency society.
他们失败了。宋建一方有实力雄厚的陈云，他极力推行独生子女政策。其他领导层大多也同意这一观点。只有少数决策者质疑，允许每对夫妇生育两个孩子是否更好，以及教育和更普及的避孕措施是否足以解决问题。邓小平的果断立场最终促成了独生子女政策。他和陈云都是经验丰富的管理者，他们凭直觉就明白，将目标设定为独生子女政策，能让数百万负责执行该政策的地方官员更容易上手。宋建趁机推动了这一政策。他的预测让他们相信，最粗略的目标也是最必要的。
The engineering state is more than autocracy or technocratic high modernism. China has succeeded better than any other authoritarian country in history at combining economic growth with political control. The Communist Party has relentlessly broken up entrenched interests, partly to prevent rich people from gaining political power and partly to spread material benefits throughout the country. Its rise suggests that a country can grow powerful when it trains a lot of engineers and puts them to work, even under less-than-great institutional arrangements. In the words of one 1991 paper written by a trio of economists, “Our evidence shows that countries with a higher proportion of engineering college majors grow faster; whereas countries with a higher proportion of law concentrators grow more slowly.” Engineers are part of the reason that China has grown so much wealthier, despite its wavering commitment to secure property rights. An engineer mindset is also part of the reason that the state skirted so close to apocalypse—in the case of the Cultural Revolution—before it achieved a growth miracle.
北京于1980年实行独生子女政策。
The lawyerly society doesn’t have such dramatic shifts. It is made up of democracy, pluralism, vetocracy, and not only these things. The lawyerly society also includes a commitment to proceduralism and protecting wealth. Economically, the United States has experienced strong economic growth relative to other Western countries combined with astonishingly successful corporate value creation. But in political terms, this obsession with process over outcomes has made Americans lose faith that the government can meaningfully improve their lives. I want the US government to earn back that faith. To do so, it will need to recover some of its engineering prowess and make room for nonlawyers among its ruling elites. It will require the United States to build again, creating a momentum and the sense of optimism for the future that many Chinese have felt over the past two decades.
宋的权威与邓小平的目标相符，即把新政策塑造成一股现代化、科学的力量，并用精确绘制的图表来证明这一点。邓小平和陈云开始用人均增长率来思考中国的发展，这使他们陷入了一种错误的思维模式，即人口越少，人均资源就越多。多年后，宋沾沾自喜地宣称，自然资源的获取比人口增长快得多。自然科学比社会科学更胜一筹。他的策略是，如果他遭到攻击，就“退守到享有崇高声望的自然科学庇护所”。宋从未停止过自我吹捧。在1988年出版的《人口系统控制》一书中，他和一位合著者写道：“运用统计和定量研究方法，人口研究摆脱了人类情感的干扰和大众伦理的有害影响。”
The reason we have to get smarter about both the United States and China is not because they are fascinating intellectual puzzles in themselves. It is because the two superpowers are uneasily circling each other, reorienting their economies and national security apparatuses to prepare for conflict.
然而，共产党无法完全忽视人的情感和民意。它知道人民会对这项政策感到难以置信。于是，共产党采取了一种几乎史无前例的做法，发表了一封致全体党员的公开信，要求他们以身作则，只生育一个孩子。据格林哈尔格（Greenhalgh）所述，宣传部门委派宋建撰写这封信的初稿。结果不出所料。宋建过于傲慢，缺乏与民众沟通的技巧，因此官员们否决了他的初稿，并将这项任务交给了专业的宣传人员。
As China and the United States gear up for competition and conflict, we need fresh ways—using terms that are not amalgamations from political science texts—to think about how both countries function and how they fail. The engineering state and the lawyerly society are not the only ways to understand the two countries; old labels like “autocratic” or “capitalist” still have some use, of course. I want to be inventive and even playful with these terms in the interest of encouraging mutual curiosity between the two countries.
那年九月，《人民日报》刊登了一封1600字的公开信。信中写道：“为了在本世纪末将中国人口控制在12亿以下，国务院向全国人民发出号召，提倡每对夫妇只生育一个孩子。这是关乎四个现代化、关乎子孙后代健康幸福、关乎全体人民长远和当前利益的重大举措。中央要求全体共产党员带头……积极、负责、耐心、认真地开展群众宣传教育工作。”
The United States has immense advantages over China: robust economic growth, an expanding and more youthful population, innovation in digital technologies, a larger network of alliances, and more. But we need to recognize that the engineering state has a giant advantage: China can build. That will matter if the two countries ever decide, in an apocalyptic scenario, to go to war. No military can be powered by artificial intelligence alone; it will need drones and munitions. And the engineering state is better set up to produce these in overwhelming quantity.
这封信的语气十分哀怨，它“倡导”夫妇只生育一个孩子。信中煞费苦心地试图让自己听起来合情合理，列举了生活水平停滞不前以及人口对农田造成的巨大压力。即使在今天，这项政策的名称也几乎无法让人联想到其执行过程中所伴随的暴力，在这种暴力中，拥有……执法人员将手伸入妇女最私密的部位，有时甚至强制进行绝育和堕胎。独生子女政策的实施意味着强迫以农村人口为主的群体改变根深蒂固的习惯。这是一场大规模的社会和人口工程。
Over the past decade, the United States brought lawyers to a technology fight. The first Trump administration blacklisted scores of Chinese tech companies. In the Biden administration, the ranks of the National Security Council and the Department of Commerce were filled with graduates of elite law schools, including their department heads. Lawyers have designed exquisite webs of technology controls, ensnaring Chinese chipmakers, telecommunications firms, and any company hoping to deploy AI. Rather than halt Chinese technology leaders in their tracks, these legal controls have riled them up. When Xi started his third term in 2022, he didn’t stack the Politburo with clever lawyers able to deliver a really good rebuttal. He filled it with scientists and engineers. They will help to design the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, which will place even greater emphasis on building technological strength.
独生子女政策最初是一场震慑性的运动，后来逐渐演变成一套错综复杂的行政体系。在长达三十五年的政策实施期间，几乎没有哪个中国家庭能够幸免。到1990年，女性想要生育第一个孩子，需要提供多达十二份来自工作单位和各级党政官员的文件，以及一份同意产后采取避孕措施的同意书。那些不幸的人则被卷入席卷农村的大规模绝育和堕胎运动中。对于描述那段时期生活的农村家庭来说，“痛苦”成了最贴切的形容词。
A contest between a literal-minded dragon and lawyerly weenies wouldn’t be a fair fight. The struggle is more complex than that. Whether one can outlast the other will depend not only on physical dynamism or technological prowess. It will depend on governance—which country can do a better job managing its affairs over the next century.
北京任命解放军前将军钱新中为国家计划生育委员会主任。钱新中将计划生育推广工作的初期阶段规划得如同军事行动一般周密。他号召计划生育官员组成流动队伍，作为“突击队”，在计划生育大战中采取“一对一”的策略。他构想的关键在于“突击”，这一术语源于社会主义运动，强调通过政治动员取得决定性成果。这些队伍由国家和党的干部、地方执法人员以及一支走访乡村的医疗队组成。医院必须做好准备，开展“四项手术”：放置宫内节育器、输卵管结扎、输精管结扎和堕胎。
As best as I can tell, the United States and China are both racing to erode their governance capabilities. Xi Jinping has forcefully centered the political decision-making process on himself, demonstrating that he intends to rule the Communist Party for as long as he pleases. The American government, meanwhile, has been mired in ineffectualness. For decades, the American right connived to drown the government in a bathtub while the left was strangling it with rules and lawsuits. The left has barely shown resolve to reform creaky institutions, and the second Trump administration behaves as if it must destroy the government in order to save it.
钱永昌将这些突击队投入到茫然无措的中国农村群众中。1980年独生子女政策开始实施时，城镇生育率已经趋向于每对夫妇生育1个孩子，而农村生育率接近2.5。对于五分之四生活在农村的中国人来说，多生孩子是经济保障的基础。如果没有多个孩子，最好是儿子，农民就无法保证有足够的工作和养老保障。
But there is hope for everyone. The most important thing that China and the United States share is a commitment to transformation. China is led by a Leninist party whose core aim is to mobilize society toward modernization. Its propaganda organs stage centralized campaigns of inspiration toward the centenary goal to achieve, by 2049, “a modern socialist country” and “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” The US commitment is more open-ended, inherent to the experiment to keep democracy going. That has been partly deformed, but we should revive the dream that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish.
1982年，中国终于具备了进行1964年以来首次人口普查的条件。邓小平和陈静对普查结果感到沮丧。18年间，中国人口增加了3亿，成为世界上第一个人口超过10亿的国家。领导层更加确信控制人口的必要性。共产党宣布计划生育为“国家根本政策”，并将其写入宪法，使其不再受任何讨论，也让钱永康得以肆意妄为。
I am not impressed with California’s governance. But I want to reveal there is one aspect of the California attitude that I fully imbibe: I am a sunny optimist for the future, with faith that both societies can change for the better. Both countries are in a state of becoming, which means that either of the superpowers are able to tilt away from their present, bad courses.
1983年，钱永康动员各级党政机关大力推进堕胎改革。当年，国家对1600万妇女实施了绝育手术，并进行了1400万例堕胎手术。相比之下，在政策实施前的1975年，国家仅进行了300万例绝育手术和500万例堕胎手术。
If Americans look deeply into China, they will find reflections of its lost powers. China, right now, is in the midst of pursuing its own Great Society, where even its poorest provinces have impressive levels of physical dynamism. Delivering the goods is part of why consent of the governed is still pretty strong in China. I saw that for myself when I spent five days furiously pedaling through the jagged mountains of Guizhou.
为了达到这些目标，政府不得不不断升级强制手段。官方首先采取的措施是恐吓。地方官员会组成“劝导小组”走访孕妇。这支由多达十名男子组成的队伍很少会以和蔼可亲的形象出现。一位美国学者亲眼目睹了广东一群妇女被与丈夫分开，送往村委会。在那里，她们被反复灌输为了国家利益放弃妊娠的理念，然后被逐一叫去同意堕胎，并被禁止回家，直到她们同意为止。1982年《纽约时报》的一篇报道援引一位广东计划生育官员的话说：“平均每个人需要被劝说10次。最难说服的人可能需要100次。”该报道还提到，一些妇女被带到群众集会上，遭到胁迫，被迫同意堕胎。
Chapter 2 Building Big
口号激励干部们不要懈怠。“任何能降低生育率的方法都是好方法，”一条口号写道。“采取一切措施，创造性地克服困难，”另一条口号说道。这些口号无异于公开授权官员可以采取任何必要手段终止妇女的妊娠。这种恐吓手段往往奏效：很少有家庭能够忍受官员们轮番上门，提出越来越苛刻的要求，上百次家访。如果这些策略仍然无效，官员们还可以威胁解雇或处以相当于数年工资的罚款。他们可以拘留妇女或其家庭成员，要求他们每天自费购买食物，并且无法与外界联系。有时，他们会搬走家具或缝纫机，没收牛羊等牲畜，甚至派推土机拆掉房屋的屋顶。一个原本认为自己有能力养活第二个孩子的家庭，现在不得不重新考虑自己是否还能负担得起。
My most vivid encounter with the engineering state occurred, in classic Chinese fashion, on a bicycle.
没有什么比完成指标更重要。地方官员如果完成绝育和堕胎指标，就能获得现金奖励和好评；如果没完成，就会被扣薪降职。执行计划生育是官员人事考核的一部分。当时在中国的记者尼古拉斯·克里斯托夫报道了一位怀孕七个月的妇女，官员们要求她立即分娩。这些官员组成了一支突击队，抓捕所有怀孕晚期的妇女，因为他们当年还有一些生育指标没用完，而他们不确定明年是否还有。尽管妇女的医生反对，他们还是强行催产。克里斯托夫描述了她在分娩过程中几乎因大出血而死。她的孩子夭折了。这位准妈妈也因此落下了残疾。
In the summer of 2021, I traveled with two friends deep into China’s southwest. Over five days, we cycled nearly four hundred miles through Guizhou province and arrived in the city of Chongqing. Rather than riding a Flying Pigeon—the comfortable but single-geared bike from the Maoist era, available only in black—I was flying through on a Giant racing bike, which was fabulously strong and quick.
如果妇女仍然不肯妥协，官员们可能会强制她们堕胎。通常，他们会在妊娠晚期进行手术，因为那时妇女已经无法掩饰隆起的腹部。在某些情况下，婴儿出生时仍然活着。迈克尔·魏斯科普夫曾报道过独生子女问题。1985年，《华盛顿邮报》刊登了一系列文章，其中一篇指出，医生有时会将甲醛注射到婴儿头部，或用产钳捏碎婴儿的头骨。更常见的情况是，医生会捂住新生儿的口鼻，或任其因暴露在甲醛环境中而死亡。
It was over this long ride that I started to realize how an examination of China’s problems throws US problems into stark relief. Each time I left Beijing and Shanghai to enter more remote parts of the country, I was astonished by how even China’s poorest provinces have better infrastructure than America’s richest. The chief feature of the engineering state is building big public works, no matter the financial or human cost. For many people in Guizhou, it has produced an enthusiasm and an expectation for physical change, a feeling not often found among Americans today.
宋健的家乡山东省发生了最臭名昭著的严格执行计划生育的事件。关县新上任的党委书记曾兆奇，因该县计划生育在全省排名垫底而感到羞辱。于是，在四月的一天，他召集了全县二十二名最高级别的党政官员，严厉斥责他们的失职，并高声要求他们采取更加严厉的措施。他要求从5月1日至8月10日，全县零出生。据现已被审查的报道，当地居民称，所有妇女都被迫堕胎，无论怀孕多久，也无论是否获得许可。由于当地居民不愿伤害自己人，曾兆奇从其他县找来打手来阻止生育。
Mountains dominate Guizhou’s landscape. They are made of karst stone, perplexed with intricacy. Even a decade ago, a cycling trip through Guizhou (pronounced Gway-JOE) might have been foolhardy. There just weren’t enough adequate roads. It is China’s fourth-poorest province and far away from prosperous coasts—a province, the saying goes, “where not three feet of land is flat, where not three days pass without rain, where not a family has three silver coins.”
关县发生的这起事件有两个名称：“百日不育”和“羔羊屠杀”，因为1991年是中国农历羊年。这场屠杀对曾先生来说结局不错。他在山东省获得了接连不断的晋升。后来，他的上司任命他为省关爱后代委员会副主任，似乎丝毫没有讽刺意味。
In the nineteenth century, one of the imperial cartographers sent by the Qing emperor to map the territory grew exasperated by his task. “Southern Guizhou has a multitude of mountain peaks jumbled together,” he lamented. “They are vexingly numerous and ill-disciplined.” Visitors did not always find locals to be hospitable. Much of Guizhou is settled by the Miao minority, which has historically resented the intrusion of China’s Han-majority ethnic group.
尽管钱新忠毫不犹豫地下令进行晚期堕胎，但他更倾向于使用绝育手术。堕胎手术对所有人来说都既麻烦又痛苦；绝育手术操作更简便，而且可能是一种彻底的解决方案。医生有时会在分娩后立即植入宫内节育器，甚至不告知患者。由于女性会试图取出这些植入的环，钱新忠更倾向于输卵管结扎——一种不可逆的手术。他主张对所有已育有两个孩子的夫妇进行绝育手术。尽管有些地方已经实施了这项措施，但并非所有地方都如此。有报道称，一些产科病房会在产妇第二次分娩后立即对其进行绝育手术。这种自动绝育的做法在北京引发了不安。由于婴儿死亡率仍然很高，农村家庭担心会永久失去生育能力。但到1999年，中国卫生部的统计数据显示，育龄已婚妇女的绝育率已达35%。
Guizhou’s insularity and mystery are the stuff of legend. One traveler in the ninth century wrote about an ordeal: While exploring the province, he chanced upon an elegant monastery. Ten nuns at once emerged, merrily inviting him inside their thatched cottages. They were excellent hosts, plying him with dried fruits. When he felt the scene to be too fantastic, the traveler braved the dismay of the nuns and abruptly departed. Once he returned to the boat, the crew confirmed his fears: The nuns were monkey tricksters who sometimes took on human form to entice people into their midst.
这场运动给农村居民带来了巨大的痛苦。他们愤怒地指责政府对待他们的方式，就像对待自己的牲畜一样。妻子和女儿被强制绝育，就像农民给猪做绝育手术一样。更糟糕的是，堕胎人员有时真的把妇女装进猪笼里运走。魏斯科夫在《华盛顿邮报》上写道：“孕妇，包括许多妊娠晚期的妇女，被捆绑、戴上手铐，赶进猪笼，然后一车一车地用卡车运到农村诊所的手术台上。” 这场运动对女性身体的伤害是巨大的。产后植入的不锈钢宫内节育器会造成长期的身体问题，引发月经出血，而且往往两年后就会失效。堕胎和侵入性的输卵管结扎手术通常匆忙进行，而且是大规模进行的，有时甚至不使用麻醉剂。男性也可以自愿接受输精管结扎手术。但通常情况下，每进行一次输精管结扎术，就有四名女性同时接受输卵管结扎术。
In the present century, the central government has lavished Guizhou with attention. Several of Guizhou’s party chiefs have gone on to high positions in Beijing, including Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party before Xi Jinping. Chinese leaders are usually expected to administer a poor province before they can be promoted to the country’s political pinnacle. In the United States, it would be as if politicians had to gain some experience in the Rust Belt or coal country before they could get anywhere near a cabinet position. Guizhou has received several big projects. The central government built the world’s largest radio telescope—with an aperture measuring five hundred meters in diameter, named the Heaven’s Eye—in a remote corner of the province. The state-owned distillery behind Maotai, the hundred-proof spirit made of sorghum, grew into one of China’s most valuable companies. Its capital city of Guiyang now hosts several of the country’s biggest data centers.
独生子女政策在城市地区并未造成太大困难。许多城市居民都能应对这种情况。他们也更有可能出国生育二胎。而且，党在动荡不安的少数民族地区行事谨慎，因为人口过剩问题是由西藏或新疆的汉族移民造成的，而非当地居民。有时，村民们能够缴纳罚款，多生一个孩子，然后继续他们的生活。行贿有时也能奏效。毕竟，地方官员有自己的利益需要掩盖真相，既要保护自己，也要保护村民。
I went to Guiyang with my friends Christian Shepherd, a journalist from the United Kingdom then working for the Financial Times, and Teng Bao, who grew up in Florida and founded a tech company in Shanghai. A century ago, it would have taken weeks of travel along twisting roads to reach Guiyang from Shanghai. For my friends and me, it took a seven-hour ride on high-speed rail.
当人们需要抵抗侵略时，他们使用了什么？詹姆斯·C·斯科特称之为弱者的武器。最直接的抵抗方式是逃往其他村庄。一位母亲或许会带着新生儿返回，希望既成事实能换来宽恕。但生下一个计划外的孩子风险极大。许多地方不允许他们享有合法出生儿童所享有的教育和医疗福利。这意味着他们可能错过早期疫苗接种，被禁止入学，甚至失去土地所有权。他们本质上是二等或三等公民，最可能的命运是沦为没有技能的移民。
Guizhou was one of the last provinces to be connected to the national high-speed network. When the railway opened its first station in 2016, engineers had finally blasted tunnels through the mountains and erected enough sturdy bridges to span the gorges. On the train, Christian, Teng, and I reclined in comfortable seats, tucking our disassembled bikes in the back of the compartment, picking up snacks or water from the attendant’s trolley when we wanted something. When we looked out the windows, the occasional blur of long tunnels hinted at the difficulty of the construction.
妇女们会尽量选择在冬季怀孕分娩，这样她们就可以用厚重的衣物遮盖隆起的腹部。官员们知道他们无法发现所有怀孕的情况，所以悬赏捉拿邻居告密。由于中国少数民族在生育多子女方面享有一定的优惠政策，人们开始发现自己拥有藏族、傣族、苗族或其他类似的族裔，而这些族裔他们之前可能忘记向当局申报。北京放宽政策，允许第一个孩子残疾的家庭生育第二个孩子后，作家彼得·海斯勒讲述了一个家庭的故事：他们租借了一个残疾儿童，并在申请二胎生育许可时谎称是自己的孩子（最终成功获批）。
Christian is a great cyclist. Teng and I had more enthusiasm than experience. The three of us each packed a change of clothes, a first-aid kit, spare tires, and not much else. We stuffed our gear into sleek leather bags strapped on the back of our bikes. Then we were off. The plan was to reach our hostel accommodations by early evening each day, where we would wash our clothes in the sink, hang them out to dry, and then get up to do it all over again the next day.
与计划生育官员对抗是万不得已的最后手段。农村村民说，这些官员只想要三样东西：钱（通过罚款）、粮食，或者性命。愤怒的村民有时会以毁坏房屋或牲畜的方式报复官员。绑架突击队领导的孩子成了常见的幻想，有时甚至付诸行动。纵火报复如此普遍，以至于干部们都患上了恐火症：一人在晋升为“输卵管结扎小组组长”十天后，他的房子就被夷为平地。针对计划生育官员的袭击如此频繁，以至于一些地区专门制定了法律来禁止报复行为。例如，陕西省通过了一项法律，禁止“侮辱、伤害、诽谤计划生育工作人员及其家属”。政府最终制定了一项专门的保险方案，用于承保计划生育工作人员的意外事故和房屋损坏。
Each day of cycling brought new thrills: spectacular landscapes, bridges and gorges that kept surpassing the last, waterfalls where we would occasionally linger. Our trek was tough—not because we were up against impassable roads or trickster monkeys, but because every day demanded the grind of pushing uphill. Guizhou’s infrastructure was a cyclist’s dream. On the first day of our trip, we cycled along a just-built highway not yet open to cars. That was our favorite moment: careening downhill at thrilling speeds amid luscious green mountains wreathed by bands of mist.
他们成了中国官场中最令人憎恨的人之一，但这些执行者几乎没有自主权，也鲜有特权。只有一半人完成了高中学业，八分之一的人接受过任何医疗培训，尽管他们中的许多人被安排进行侵入性手术。大多数人收入微薄，在执行独生子女政策期间，由于受到其他官员的轻视，士气低落。在三项独立的国家调查中，超过一半的计划生育官员表示希望辞职。
This bike ride was the greatest physical exertion of my life, as well as the most rewarding. We enjoyed not only the views but the food as well. Every few hours, we took a break along the side of the road. You expend an enormous amount of energy on a bike, so we would order bowls of noodles—spooning in the pungent pickles that make Guizhou cuisine so bracing—and then grab a vanilla ice cream bar before hopping back on our bikes. At night, we ordered local dishes: a fish stew full of sour pickles, braised goat, a salad of local herbs and roots, and rice balls (each the size of a lime) filled with sweet sesame, deep fried with savory pickles on the side.
独生子女政策的顶峰是钱永康在1983年的大力推行。同年晚些时候，他失去了工作。之后，北京略微放宽了政策，发布了新的指导方针，摒弃了休克疗法，并允许更多夫妇生育二胎，尤其是在农村地区。然而，残酷的政策仍在继续。中国的卫生年鉴显示，1991年，也就是山东关县发生大规模屠杀的那一年，绝育和堕胎再次达到高峰，因为大量妇女进入了生育年龄。此后，独生子女政策的对抗性有所减弱，但绝育和堕胎率仍然居高不下。
If only that Qing cartographer could see Guizhou now. All sorts of new infrastructure are built into its countryside. On the third day, we came upon a sight nearly as strange as a monkey-filled phantasm. Teng was leading the three of us when he yelled, “Guitars!” When I raised my gaze, I saw that big guitar ornaments were hanging off of streetlamps. In the distance, I spied a hill topped by a giant rock guitar. It turned out that we were cycling through Zheng’an County, the self-styled guitar capital of the world. According to state media, one of every seven guitars made worldwide is produced in this township we passed through by chance.
十多年来，独生子女政策在农村地区引发了一场恐怖运动。地方官员不得不让民众相信，他们决心改变生育习惯。当时的记录，甚至偶尔出现在官方媒体上，报道了强制绝育和堕胎，以及公开溺死新生儿的事件，以此让人们意识到国家及其独生子女政策是认真的。国家试图通过改变文化观念来强制执行这项政策。
That is another feature of the engineering state: Manufacturing hubs are everywhere, often making goods you don’t expect.
独生子女政策遗留的臭名昭著的后果之一是：女婴杀害率居高不下。农村家庭往往有两个愿望：多生孩子，而且至少要生一个男孩。独生子女政策将这些愿望简化为重男轻女。政府部门接到了大量关于女婴被杀害的报告。女婴一出生就被闷死、溺死、毒死或弃尸垃圾堆。“目前，杀害、溺死、弃尸女婴以及虐待生下女婴的妇女等现象非常严重，”官方媒体无奈地承认，“这已成为一个严重的社会问题。”到了20世纪90年代初，超声波设备得到广泛应用，使得父母可以进行性别选择性堕胎。这意味着出生后杀害女婴的案例有所减少。但这并没有阻止中国官方公布的出生性别比在1999年达到每100个女孩对应120个男孩。此后，这一比例下降到每100个女孩对应111个男孩。然而，在过去的几十年里，人口统计学家估计约有四千万女性“失踪”了。
Guizhou locals may be as surprised as anyone to host the world’s guitar capital. Not many of them play the instrument. Zheng’an became a guitar hub because a lot of its residents had moved to coastal Guangdong for work, many of them finding employment by coincidence in guitar factories. Then the local government made a big effort to entice them to return to Guizhou as part of a policy to develop the interior. That effort coincided with a 2012 directive from the State Council (the executive agency of the central government) that encouraged manufacturers to relocate from coastal provinces to inland ones. The document had suggested that Guizhou pursue technologically intensive industries like aerospace or electric vehicle manufacturing. Instead, what Guizhou built was more suitable to its less-skilled realities: the Guitar Culture Industrial Park.
并非所有家庭都忍心放弃刚出生的女儿。凯·安·约翰逊是一位来自马萨诸塞州的教授，她在中国北方进行田野调查时收养了一个三个月大的女婴。二十年后，她写了一本感人至深的书—— 《中国的隐秘儿童》，正如她所说，这本书的部分目的是为了帮助那些被海外收养的中国儿童理解他们亲生父母所处的困境。一些意外出生或被收养的孩子，早在三岁时，当他们得知自己遭受法律歧视或遗弃时，就会恍然大悟地说：“我本不该来到这个世界。”在大量的访谈中，约翰逊发现，包括孩子父亲在内的许多农村家庭，都因为无法留下自己的孩子而感到痛苦和愤怒，留下了难以磨灭的情感创伤。他们觉得自己别无选择，同时也承受着深深的失落感和个人失败感。
Zheng’an isn’t making the best guitars in the world. For the most part, it’s serving the lower half of the market. But its manufacturers are improving as local brands are getting hungry for global recognition. One of them is experimenting by adding bamboo into its guitars. Many of them are trying to become known for quality, not cheapness. I suspect many of them will get there. Chinese manufacturers are steadily gaining recognition for producing quality knives, sound systems, electric vehicles, consumer drones, and many other products. Why not guitars too?
当亲生父母（几乎总是如此）遗弃他们的女婴时，他们会努力寻找一个好的收养家庭，通常是没有孩子的夫妇或已经有多个男孩的家庭。在把女孩送到……之后，他们会想方设法寻找合适的收养家庭。在门口，他们可能会燃放鞭炮以引起注意。任何从门口出来的人都会瞥一眼新生儿，立刻明白自己肩负的使命。如果孩子的亲生父母找不到合适的家庭，他们可能会不情愿地把女孩遗弃在城里，因为他们不知道谁会收养他们的孩子。在城里，听到纸箱里或垃圾堆旁传来婴儿的哭声，成了司空见惯的事情。
After four days of cycling through Guizhou, we arrived in the municipality of Chongqing. The city’s downtown core is built around two rivers—the Yangtze and the Jialing—with a skyline dominated by tall buildings that sprout from steep hillsides. They seem to stack upon each other: You can enter a building at ground level, go up by elevator for over ten floors, and exit once more at ground level. Chongqing is my favorite Chinese city to visit because it has the country’s, and perhaps the world’s, most dramatic urban setting. Highways and bridges weave through huge buildings that look as if they are carved into the hills, connected to each other by systems of stairs, escalators, and walkways. The city is filled with ludicrous designs, like a subway line that passes through the middle of an apartment building sitting on a hill.
独生子女政策导致弃婴和拐卖儿童案件激增。人口贩卖团伙趁机在无法抚养子女的家庭和想要再生一个孩子的家庭之间斡旋。有时，他们拐卖女孩以满足未来新娘的需求；大多数情况下，他们拐卖男孩，因为更多家庭想要儿子。儿童走私成为跨省活动。2004年，一辆长途巴士上发现了24名装在手提袋里的女婴，她们被下了药以保持安静，准备被送往收养家庭。这起案件导致一个大型婴儿贩卖团伙被捣毁，其头目被判处死刑。在21世纪的大部分时间里，警方持续开展解救被拐卖儿童的行动。
Chongqing was China’s capital during World War II, then known as Chungking. There, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces huddled with Communists and the US general Joseph Stilwell inside air-raid tunnels carved into hillsides to shelter from Japanese bombers. Chongqing is a municipality that matches the landmass of Austria—and is just as mountainous—as well as the population of Texas—and is just as boisterous. The bridges that were elegant in the Guizhou countryside swelled toward monstrosity as we approached the city. Everything is bigger in Chongqing. It is raucous, full of unexpected sites, a city that teems. With its Blade Runner aesthetic, Chongqing is the embodiment of cyberpunk—or more aptly given its rivers, hydropunk.
约翰逊列举了数起国家强行带走儿童的案例。其中一起案例中，七名男子从四面八方涌入一个意外怀孕家庭的家中：“政府带走了他们的孩子，剥夺了他们的监护权，让他们心碎不已，却又无能为力，”约翰逊写道，“这无异于政府的绑架，让他们束手无策。”
The mountains that protected the city from Japanese bombers also create a heat trap, making Chongqing one of China’s “four furnaces.” Perversely, the favorite food of locals is a cauldron of red chilies, beef oil, and Sichuan peppercorns—which generates a purring tingle on the tongue—into which one dips a swirl of thinly sliced meats and vegetables. Some of the air-raid tunnels have become hotpot restaurants, popular because the tunnels’ cool air helps spicy food go down more easily. Chongqing is also making plans to turn some of these shelters into art exhibitions or wine cellars.
国家主导的拐卖是独生子女政策带来的恶果之一。中国从20世纪90年代初开始向国外输送儿童。一些美国家庭前往中国领养孩子，由此催生了众多收养机构。尽管对外国父母的审查程序十分严格，但将孩子交给他们的过程却并非总是透明的。孤儿院对待孩子的方式也并非总是善待：一位美国人在前往中国领养孩子的过程中……武汉写道，在他旅行期间，一个家庭连续收到两份通知，称他们预定的领养儿童已经去世。北京签署的国际公约要求领养父母捐赠一定金额。这笔捐款金额在3000美元到5500美元之间，对任何一家中国孤儿院来说都是一笔巨款。这造成了一种印象，即孤儿院从事贩卖儿童的勾当。这种说法往往并不公平。不幸的是，地方政府有时确实试图从这些巨额捐款中获利。
Christian, Teng, and I were in a celebratory mood when we reached the city. After four days of cycling through nature, it felt great to be thrown into Chongqing’s dramatic urban scenery. At night, the city’s skyscrapers come to life with bright lights dancing along their sides. As we watched the sun set, people gathered around low tables, the centers of which held steaming pots of crimson broth.
湖南是毛泽东的故乡，也是独生子女政策诸多恶行被曝光的地区，其极端程度令人震惊。据报道，龙会县农村地区的父母每当计划生育官员上门时，都会抱起婴儿四处躲藏。官员们至少强行带走了16名没有合法证件的儿童，并将他们送往孤儿院。最终，其中一些孩子辗转来到了美国、波兰和荷兰。龙会县居民指责政府为了敛财而强行带走他们的孩子，这引发了一个令人毛骨悚然的可能性：一些美国家庭可能收养了并非真正被遗弃的儿童。
I almost never drink. If there was ever an occasion, I decided, it would be the end of this bike ride. The three of us toasted each other with cold beers and then ordered food so spicy that it altered my auditory capacity. Below us were lazy pleasure boats cruising on the Yangtze River, a few headed toward the Three Gorges Dam. The following day, I hopped back on the high-speed rail to return to work in Shanghai.
独生子女政策一直延续到网络时代。2012年，陕西农村一位名叫冯建梅的23岁母亲怀上了二胎。由于她无力缴纳计划生育官员索要的罚款，他们把她塞进一辆面包车，蒙住她的眼睛，强迫她在看不见的文件上签字，并给她注射了诱导死胎的针剂。这本身或许并不令人震惊。真正令人震惊的是，冯建梅的丈夫将她疲惫不堪、身边躺着血淋淋的死胎的照片上传到了中国新兴的社交媒体平台上。这条帖子迅速传播开来，引发了年轻人的强烈愤慨。一位评论者指出，计划生育制度“多年来一直以国家政策的名义公然杀人”。
It was only afterward that I started to appreciate the strangeness of what I had cycled through. I had traversed a poor region to which the engineering state has devoted tremendous resources to modernize. Guizhou had compressed the century’s worth of investments that the United States had made—between the Transcontinental Railroad and the Interstate Highway System—into two decades.
北京迟迟未能结束独生子女政策，很大程度上是由于官僚主义作风。国家计划生育委员会曾超过50万名工作人员、120万名地方执法人员和600万名村级官员参与了这项政策的执行。据官方媒体报道，该机构在其运作期间共收取了2000亿美元的罚款。对于数百万依靠这个机构获得工作的人来说，维持这项政策的有效性是值得的。而且，该委员会不断发现家庭隐瞒计划外生育的证据。直到2010年的人口普查最终证实生育率已经崩溃，中央政府才解散了该委员会。
After cycling through Guizhou, I came to a different understanding of the term “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
中国逐步结束了独生子女政策，直到官僚机构不再反对后才正式终止。独生子女政策于2015年改为二孩政策，随后于2021年改为三孩政策。在独生子女政策实施的35年间，中国共进行了3.21亿例堕胎手术（与美国目前的人口数量相差不远），并为1.08亿名妇女和2600万名男子进行了绝育手术。2024年，北京宣布将停止国际收养。到那时，已有超过15万名儿童被送往国外（其中约一半被送往美国），几乎全部是女孩。
China does little by way of redistribution from the wealthy to the poor; rather, it is enacting a Leninist agenda in which the state retains enormous discretion to command economic resources in order to maintain political control and to build toward a post-scarcity world. By examining Guizhou’s development, as well as the developments of a few other places that I want to bring readers’ attention to, we can grasp just what those “Chinese characteristics” actually entail.
2024年，我写下这一章时，我的妻子西尔维娅流产了。那是我们第一次怀孕，孕早期。在我们悲痛欲绝之时，我又开始着手撰写关于大规模绝育和堕胎运动的文章。更令我难以想象的是，国家是如何强迫那么多女性在孕晚期堕胎的。与此同时，美国女性正为她们的生育权受到限制而忧心忡忡。西尔维娅和我都认为，无论是强制堕胎还是禁止堕胎，都不人道，这意味着国家应该让家庭，尤其是女性，拥有选择的权利。
Guizhou has built forty-five of the world’s one hundred highest bridges. It has eleven airports, with three more under construction. It has five thousand miles of expressways, ranked fourth among provinces in China by length. It has around a thousand miles of high-speed train track. Guizhou’s infrastructure isn’t made only of the twentieth-century stuff of steel and concrete. Guiyang bills itself as a “big data valley,” touting that its cool air can lower heating costs. Enormous facilities housing data servers make Guizhou emblematic of the modern infrastructure that powers AI too.
我出生于1992年。当我跟妈妈谈起独生子女时代时，她印象最深的莫过于繁琐的官僚程序。为了生下我，她需要填写很多表格，包括签署各种文件。我出生后，她才开始采取避孕措施。当我告诉她，在我出生前一年，中国的堕胎数量位居世界第二（1400万例，比1983年执法最严的年份少了几十万例）时，她很惊讶。由于我的父母是城市居民，他们没有感受到这场执法浪潮的冲击，这场浪潮主要集中在农村地区。他们的生育观念也和城市居民一样，倾向于只生一个孩子。在我七岁那年，我们搬到加拿大后，我的父母讨论过要不要第二个孩子。但他们并没有特别强烈的意愿，所以最终没有要。
The Guizhou locals we chatted with were prouder of their bridges than anything else. My friends and I cycled across bridges that were set above plunging ravines. State media boasts that Guizhou has become a “museum of bridges,” a few of which are trying to develop into tourism sites: The tenth-highest bridge in Guizhou (which is twenty-third globally) hosts the world’s highest bungee jump. Each time the engineers build a bridge, they inevitably announce that travel times between two towns have been cut from many hours to perhaps a few minutes. That creates real convenience and connection for rural people. Some of these are bridges to nowhere, but after a few years, they become somewhere.
独生子女政策在城市居民中留下了微妙的印记。像我这个年纪的中国人很少会问彼此是否有兄弟姐妹；如果有人有兄弟姐妹，反而会让人觉得很奇怪。我有三个表兄弟姐妹，为了增进彼此的感情，家人鼓励我称呼她们为姐妹。
Still, beneath Guizhou’s engineering marvels are counties mired in poverty. At $8,000 per capita, the province has the income of Botswana, 40 percent below China’s national average and less than a third that of rich coastal cities like Beijing and Shanghai. One day, Christian remarked on how few working-age adults we saw in Guizhou: Those who don’t have a job making guitars have mostly migrated to other provinces, leaving small children in the care of grandparents. In 2010, only half of Guizhou’s children attended high school—the lowest rate in the country. News reports often featured stories of children having to rise at the crack of dawn and hike through harrowing mountain paths, some with rope ladders, to be able to attend school.
时间冲淡了部分创伤记忆，但对农村居民而言，这些记忆依然清晰可见。对独生子女政策感兴趣的外国人，或许很难从他们接触的中国人那里听到生动的故事，因为这些人往往是来自城市的相对富裕阶层。农村居民很少有机会出国留学和生活，他们甚至很难搬到城市，这都归咎于户籍制度——这项旨在限制国内人口流动的社会工程的又一例证。独生子女政策让我再次想起一句对我影响至深的话：“中国农民，你们的名字叫苦难。” 这句话出自孙大武之口，他是一位农村企业家，如今却因倡导这一理念而身陷囹圄。
In spite of the challenges of deep rural isolation, China’s fourth-poorest province—where household income is one-fifteenth that of New York State—has vastly superior infrastructure: three times the length of New York’s highways, as well as a functional high-speed rail network. And Guizhou isn’t exactly an exceptional Chinese province. Across the country, the engineering state has relentlessly built public works, making Guizhou an extreme case of China’s growth strategy rather than a deviation from it.
独生子女政策只能由工程型国家制定。没有哪个国家会让导弹科学家参与人口政策的设计。其根源部分在于邓小平和陈云的控制倾向，他们想通过控制人口来控制经济。部分原因是出于对毛泽东的反抗，部分原因是借用了宋坚的理论，他们认为自己是在运用一种科学方法。他们脱离大众情绪，基于西方生态考量，并以控制理论为基础。他们认为自己是在扮演技术官僚的角色。
Modern China has been on a building spree. It began in the 1990s, after economic reopening took hold, and then received another boost in 2008, when the central government approved vast public works to respond to the global financial crisis.
法律界就独生子女政策展开辩论并最终否决了它。美国和其他西方国家也曾考虑实施严格的人口控制，以应对“人口爆炸”的威胁。社会科学家，尤其是经济学家，迅速批评了这些线性预测的缺陷。但在中国，社会科学家在毛泽东的霸凌下变得唯唯诺诺。在这个关键时刻，中国缺乏抵制这项政策的知识储备。中国领导人与西方接触的程度恰到好处，既足以吸收这种新马尔萨斯主义的末日论调，又不足以了解西方对此的反驳。
China’s first interprovincial expressway opened in 1993, connecting Beijing with the nearby port city of Tianjin. Soon enough, highways reached everywhere. A Chinese citizen born when the country completed its first expressway would—by the time she reached the legal driving age of eighteen in 2011—be able to drive on a highway system that surpassed the length of the US interstate system. By 2020, China had built a second batch of expressways that again totaled the length of the US system. The first expanse of highways took eighteen years to build; the second took half that time.
独生子女政策只能在工程国家中实施。虽然国家拥有足以执行如此大规模管控的官僚机构，但公民社会发展程度不足，无法争取法律保护来对抗这种政策。共产党天生就适合推行此类运动。这就是等级森严、动员力强的列宁主义政党的惯用伎俩。当它任命像钱新中这样残暴的将军掌权时，便得以推行数量惊人的绝育和堕胎。
Cars quickly filled these roads. In 1990, there were half a million automobiles in the country; in 2024, there were 435 million, many of them electric. China didn’t just build cars and highways. It also built mass transit. From 2003 to 2013, Shanghai added as much subway track as in the entire system in New York City. In 2025, fifty-one Chinese cities have subway lines, eleven of which are longer than New York’s. China now has a longer high-speed rail network than the rest of the world put together, ten times the length of Spain’s and Japan’s (second and third in the world, respectively). Sleek railcars in silver zooming on elevated bridges are telegenic things, their pictures adorning billboards and book covers. This system completes around two billion passenger trips each year.
独生子女政策是对工程化国家的一次尖锐控诉。它揭示了当一个国家将民众视为可以操控的群体，而非拥有欲望、目标和权利的个体时，会造成怎样的后果。
The state loves showing footage of big container ships that berth under enormous cranes, plucking from a mosaic of containers. As exports soared, China’s ports became the world’s busiest. Shanghai alone moved more containers in 2022 than all of the US ports combined. China’s export engine sputtered in the early 2000s, not for a lack of ports but for a lack of power in Guangdong. So the state invested in a network of new power plants mostly burning coal. In addition to using fossil fuels, China builds a third to a half of the world’s new wind and solar capacity each year. It is sending renewable energy from its sparse western provinces into its industrialized eastern provinces.
苏珊·格林哈尔格讲述了梁仲堂的故事。梁仲堂是党内少数公开反对独生子女政策的人之一。然而，他只是山西省偏远地区的一位大学教授，与实际的政策制定相去甚远。梁仲堂试图让中国领导层将村民视为有血有肉的人，他们的生育意愿深深植根于一系列文化价值观之中。以及经济需求。他轻易败给了以宋为首的控制论派，后者将农村人口视为国家可以随意控制的变量。“家庭规模太重要了，不能交给夫妻个人决定，”钱新忠说。“生育和其他经济社会活动一样，都是国家计划的一部分，因为这关乎战略考量。”
In 1957, the world’s first commercial nuclear plant started producing electricity in Pennsylvania. In 1991, China's first commercial nuclear power plant started producing electricity. By 2025, China caught up to the United States in the number of nuclear plants: fifty-five and fifty-four, respectively. Though the United States might restart a few decommissioned reactors, it has just one under construction. Meanwhile, thirty-one are under construction in China. The only US nuclear plant built in the twenty-first century took fifteen years and $30 billion. In August 2024, China’s nuclear authority approved construction of eleven new reactors, which are collectively expected to cost the same amount.
对我父母来说，他们成长的年代，中国物资匮乏是显而易见的。他们什么都要凭配给券买：大米、鸡蛋、食用油、自行车，甚至连房子都很难买到。我的父母是少数几个能考上大学的学生之一。当我问父亲独生子女政策是否合理时，他回答说：“人太多了！” 这句话至今仍然很流行。即使在今天，高峰时段乘坐地铁或在国庆节游览景区的人，仍然可能听到人们低声议论。
Above all, China built housing. Its urban population has grown by an average of sixteen million people each year since 1978, which means, in effect, that the state built a new city the size of greater New York City and greater Boston combined every year for thirty-five years. Though Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have soaring housing prices, high rates of construction plus rising wages have broadly improved affordability. From 2007 to 2018, the average price of an urban apartment fell from nine times the average household income to seven times. This building spree consumes colossal amounts of steel, aluminum, copper, cement, and glass. According to Vaclav Smil, the 4.4 billion tons of cement that China produced from 2018 to 2019 nearly equals the amount of cement the United States produced over the entire twentieth century.
毫无疑问，在1980年实行独生子女政策之前，中国人民经历了各种物资的严重短缺。但这些短缺是社会主义计划经济体制的产物。该体制的特点是农业集体化、重工业化以及巨额国防开支，导致消费品生产资金匮乏。邓小平带领中国摆脱社会主义后，消费品短缺的状况有所缓解。邓小平是否意识到，他一方面试图对民众实行计划经济，一方面又试图废除经济计划经济，这本身就极具讽刺意味，这一点尚不清楚。
This building boom was both a cause and an effect of China’s growing wealth. It stimulated economic activity directly: The construction of homes, highways, subways, and power plants spurred demand for materials and jobs that rippled beyond the immediate construction site. It also facilitated China’s urbanization, pulling people from farms into cities, where their productivity was much greater. In a crucial period while China’s labor force was expanding, this infrastructure laid the foundation for the country’s export-based manufacturing strategy.
自独生子女政策实施以来，中国人口增长了40%——北京人口翻了一番，上海人口翻了四番——但中国人的生活水平却比以往任何时候都高。他们拥有丰富的物质财富，更容易享受到生活中的美好事物。这种转变主要源于经济自由的放宽以及与世界其他地区进行贸易的开放。尽管毛泽东的经济政策曾导致饥荒和贫困，但……很难不赞同他1949年的那番话：“即使中国人口成倍增长，也完全有能力找到解决办法。而解决办法就是生产。”
Most of China’s enrichment has been driven by the people themselves, finally freed from Maoist restraints to pursue a better life. Meanwhile, the state’s mania for building public works has helped the country grow faster. You can see how China differs from India, Indonesia, and other developing countries, where growth is lower in part because the state hasn’t built enough housing and infrastructure for their citizens.
共产党非但没有承认自己无法兑现承诺，反而决定把责任推卸给人民。他们认为问题出在“人口过剩”上，而不是领导层坚持的不完善的经济体制。
While China compressed more than a century’s worth of American construction into a few decades, it folded in many of its problems too.
在人们为了适应独生子女政策而诉诸杀害女婴之后，北京对随之而来的新闻报道感到尴尬。共产党非但没有承认其迫使人们陷入两难境地，反而再次将责任推卸给民众。干部宣称杀害女婴是“封建思想”和“农民心态”的体现。任何真正解决问题的努力都显得敷衍了事，仅限于劝诫和教育宣传。人口控制仍然是中国面临的首要问题。数百万失踪女婴的问题则被远远抛在了脑后。
Highways have ripped apart too many cities in China, just as they have in the United States. Chinese have mustered tremendous enthusiasm for destroying the nation’s physical heritage in the recent past. It was prominent during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao ordered Red Guards to loot Buddhist temples, smash Confucian statues, and desecrate ancestral tombs. Over more recent decades, destruction was more systematic than the ruin of particular cultural treasures, as whole neighborhoods fell to the bulldozer. In their place are wide avenues and concrete superblocks. Unfortunately, not much new construction in China is optimized for charm and beauty.
共产党以环境保护为由推行独生子女政策。政策实施后不久，中国便开始了大规模工业化进程，经济增长的同时，也严重破坏了国家的生态环境：湖泊污染、土壤重金属污染、煤烟污染空气。深圳牡蛎养殖生态系统的破坏并非源于人口过剩，而是国家主导的工业化。独生子女政策与中国肆意破坏环境的行径几乎同步进行。或许，这项政策甚至为决策者提供了道德上的“许可”，让他们得以肆意破坏环境。
The engineering state is built for a bird’s-eye view. The geometry of highway interchanges, rows upon rows of solar photovoltaic panels, and, under the right lighting, even a belching chemical plant can produce a pleasing thrill when viewed up high and at a distance. Down below, the urban environment is not always pleasantly livable. Big cities like Beijing and Shenzhen are poorly laid out, with no extensive walkable zones. It takes forever to get across town.
人们将如何看待独生子女政策？2015年该政策结束时，三位人口学家在《家庭计划研究》期刊上发表了一篇评估文章：“未来几代人回顾中国的独生子女政策时，可能会感到困惑和难以置信。许多人无法理解，在20世纪下半叶面临人口快速增长挑战的所有国家中，为何偏偏是中国采取了独生子女政策。”上个世纪，只有中国走上了如此极端的道路；在一个以尊重家庭、亲属和孝道为基础的社会里，政府为何要推行一项实际上切断了许多亲属关系至少一代人的政策，这令人费解；中国为何在生育率已经大幅下降之后才实施这项政策，这令人费解；中国为何要等这么久才结束这项有害的政策，这同样令人费解。
I was much happier to live in Shanghai, where many streets have remained human-scaled rather than being built for cars. The French Concession, where I lived, remains leafy and full of cafés. Shanghai is highly walkable, and one is rarely more than a fifteen-minute walk from one of the city’s many subway stations. Shanghai has vowed to open 120 new parks every year until 2025, when the city will reach 1,000 green spaces. The city of twenty-five million people works remarkably well. Like Tokyo, it has flourishing spaces for commerce, where little dumpling shops are tucked away even in subway stations. And Shanghai is superbly connected by high-speed rail to nearby cities—for example, Hangzhou, home to tech companies like Alibaba, and Suzhou, where many multinationals have manufacturing operations—which are themselves some of China’s most successful cities.
在所有对独生子女政策的批评中，或许最尖锐的一点是，中国原本没有必要降低生育率。由于此前一些强制性较弱的计划生育政策，中国的生育率已经呈下降趋势。1970年初，中国的生育率约为每名妇女6.0个孩子；十年后，当国家实施独生子女政策时，生育率已经降至2.7。专业人口学家至今仍在争论独生子女政策究竟在多大程度上降低了生育率。官方媒体声称，四十年来，计划生育措施阻止了四亿新生儿的出生。然而，这一数字与宋健的预测一样，都存在类似的线性假设。由于政府公布的数据零散不全，任何试图确定独生子女政策究竟阻止了多少新生儿出生的努力都变得异常困难。
Though China has embraced American car culture, it’s still easy to get around by bike in Shanghai. The city has in recent years refashioned a stretch of its riverside into a series of wetland parks along a fifteen-mile bike path, where one can cycle past the brick warehouses and glass skyscrapers that make Shanghai feel quite like New York City. I loved taking my Giant along the river, zooming past the World Expo development, the Mercedes-Benz Arena, bridges tall enough to allow barges to sail underneath, and all sorts of beautifully preserved industrial buildings.
人口学家认为，邓小平降低生育率的功劳在于他并未推行独生子女政策，而是通过经济开放。更高的城镇化率、教育水平，尤其是经济增长，是现代社会最有效的避孕措施。这些因素也促使邻国日本、韩国和台湾降低了生育率。
Compulsive construction has benefits. Though people in Guizhou remain poor, the villagers we encountered on our bike trip told us they are thrilled to have new bridges and trains. For Chinese who have experienced economic growth rates of 10 percent a year, it would feel like their country was reborn roughly every seven years. (That’s how much time an economy takes to double with that growth rate.) It means better cars, more subway lines, cleaner streets, more parks, and a hundred other improvements.
独生子女政策真正的遗留问题是给母亲们造成的心理创伤，有时甚至是身体创伤，性别不平等以及人口迅速老龄化。人口老龄化一直是独生子女政策带来的一个可预见的担忧。事实上，共产党在1980年的公开信中也承认了这一点。这封信对未来孩子需要赡养四位祖父母的担忧不以为然。相反，他们声称这项政策将确保国家繁荣昌盛，使国家能够为所有人提供优厚的养老金。宣传部门先是呼吁民众信任政府，随后又转而要求他们不要给政府增加负担。此前的宣传口号之一是“生一个孩子就够了，等你老了国家会照顾你”，而现在的新口号是“生三个孩子，这样你就不用寻求国家养老服务了”。
The United States used to make enormous investments to modernize its poorer regions. Today, Americans rarely feel so excited for major construction projects, in part because they’re associated with environmental damage, in part because they take so long to complete, and in part because they’re so rare that people have forgotten how much they can improve lives.
宋建和钱新中似乎都对自己在独生子女政策中所扮演的角色没有太多悔意。1983年，钱新中获得了一项颇为奇特的荣誉：联合国人口基金将首届人口奖颁给了他（与他一同获奖的还有在印度主持强制绝育运动的英迪拉·甘地）。在担任计划生育委员会主席之后，他再也没有担任过其他公职，于2009年去世，享年98岁。
Americans are no longer able to appreciate that a physically dynamic landscape creates a sense of progress. People living in Texas, Arizona, and the southern states that have built new skylines and masses of new homes might know how that feels. But in the largest cities in the Northeast and California, the default is toward rigidity. A new building here and there, perhaps a cute new shop or café, a toilet that cost over a million dollars—these overall inspire little eagerness for physical change.
宋健至今仍活跃在政坛。1980年以后，他担任过一系列令人瞩目的要职：中国工程院院长、科技部部长、国务委员，以及长达二十年的中共中央委员。他是一位天生的政治家。即便中国人口没有爆炸式增长，他依然能够宣称自己成功化解了中国的人口炸弹。宋健对控制论的热情从未消退。在1984年发表的一篇雄心勃勃的文章中，他主张由一位强有力的领导者，辅以技术干部团队，运用控制论来管理整个社会。
That feeling contributes to a blind spot that Americans have for China. People unable to appreciate the benefits of material improvements also don’t understand how it produces pride and satisfaction. China’s transformation has given people running water and toilets, mass transit and highways, beautiful parks and modern malls. Most people can remember a time in only the recent past when they didn’t have these things. This growth trendline matters. The glittering skyscrapers and rail lines form a core plank of the Communist Party’s legitimacy. Though China’s growth has slowed substantially under Xi’s rule, people have a hope for improvement. The better infrastructure that has been built helps people to feel that progress still courses throughout the country.
宋教授2002年退休前，他的最后一个项目是研究中国古代文明的年代。访问埃及后，他感到惭愧，因为中国似乎缺乏对其古代文明的详细年代记录。尽管中国声称拥有五千年的连续历史，但最初的几千年却有些模糊不清。宋教授证实，中华文明比之前记载的还要古老1400年。这又是一项伟大的成就！没有什么比听到国家昔日的辉煌远超人们的想象更令中国人感到欣慰的了。
When Beijing began construction of its high-speed rail program in 2008, critics charged that it was foolish for a then-poor country to acquire the sorts of luxury infrastructure out of reach even for many rich countries. “Infrastructure investment can be too good for a country’s development level,” concluded a line from economist Michael Pettis, which was not an atypical sentiment. But China’s railways had been hugely crowded, with passenger trains sharing the same tracks as freight trains, which caused endless delays. The creation of this fast and dedicated passenger network relieved congestion for all.
这是宋建运用其卓越的才智和业余爱好者的热情为国家服务的最后一例。他在历史编年方面的工作或许无伤大雅，但他参与制定独生子女政策却造成了巨大的创伤。或许我之前将宋建与爱因斯坦相提并论并不恰当，毕竟他们都曾将科学分析强加于高层领导人之后，产生了深远的影响。或许更恰当的比较对象是特罗菲姆·李森科，这位农学家与苏联东正教结盟，并助长了苏联的饥荒。
A study undertaken by the World Bank in 2019 found that China’s high-speed rail system is economically viable, with ticket revenues able to recoup costs. China has been able to build high-speed rail cheaply because it has standardized designs and excellent project management. The average cost to construct a high-speed line in China is about $33 million per mile, which is 40 percent cheaper than in Europe and 80 percent cheaper than California’s effort, which has seen costs balloon to $192 million per mile. By taking a broader view, the World Bank suggests that China’s high-speed rail has delivered substantial benefits beyond ticket revenues, which includes saving time for users, increasing intellectual and business exchanges, reducing road accidents and traffic congestion, and lowering carbon emissions.
宋的例子让我对任何鼓吹“遵循科学”的人都产生了怀疑。如果任何掌权者开始宣称科学本身就是值得追求的目标，而不必将其置于社会和伦理的语境中，我们就应该感到非常担忧。我认为，温斯顿·丘吉尔那句“科学家应该随叫随到，而不是高高在上”的妙语仍然有一定道理。
Rather than redistribute resources from the rich to the poor, the state builds infrastructure in Guizhou. Lenin used the term “commanding heights of the economy” to refer to strategic sectors like power generation and transportation. In Guizhou, the commanding heights may well be seen from its tall bridges.
到2100年，中国人口预计将减少到7亿。事实证明，这正是宋健计算出的最佳人口规模。
The engineering state, citing socialism with Chinese characteristics, is set up to give people one main thing: material improvements, mostly through public works. The engineering state builds big in part because it’s made up of self-professed communists who grew up admiring the Soviet Union. Communist Party leaders like Xi Jinping studied in an educational system steeped in Marxism. For them, production was a noble deed to advance communism, while consumption was a despicable act of capitalism. This party believes that only the state has the wisdom to invest in strategic megaprojects, whereas consumers will waste money on themselves. It is hostile to ordinary people having much command of resources, which empowers an individual’s agency rather than the state’s.
习近平和中国其他领导人非但没有庆祝人口下降，反而正努力扭转这一趋势。从2022年起，每年推动共产党实现民族复兴的人口都会略有减少。由于新生儿数量减少，一些省份的产科病房已经开始关闭。预计到2025年，成人纸尿裤的销量将超过婴儿纸尿裤。中国在富裕之前就已经老龄化了：日本人口开始下降时（比中国早14年），其经济水平是中国的两倍多。
The Communist Party celebrates the birthday of Karl Marx; to close out its party congress, held twice a decade, the military band plays the “Internationale” socialist anthem inside the Great Hall of the People. But as I said in my introduction, China is also a country governed by conservatives who masquerade as leftists. Perhaps no other self-proclaimed socialist country is as lightly taxed as China. Nearly three-quarters of China’s population are spared from paying income tax. China has also failed to levy a broad property tax, leaving the bulk of rich city dwellers’ wealth untouched. It relies more heavily on consumption taxes, which are regressive because they burden the poor more than the rich.
历史上是否有哪个国家像美国这样竭尽全力减少本国人口？毛泽东会对独生子女政策感到震惊，就像他之前几乎所有的世界领导人一样。人口越多，权力就越大。政治领导人总是倾向于拥有更多的人口。两者兼而有之。人口下降将导致中国实现地缘政治主导地位的实际能力逐渐削弱。
Beijing has announced several times that it would impose a property tax. Each time it faltered. One of the political reasons is that China’s leaders are familiar with the American slogan “No taxation without representation.” Since the state levies relatively light taxes, which it takes unobtrusively from citizens, it reduces the risk that people start asking questions about what the state is doing with their hard-earned funds and whether their taxes should entitle them to greater political participation.
中国的低生育率令习近平和中共其他成员感到担忧。在2023年与全国妇联的会议上，习近平承诺，在其第三个任期内，政府将“完善和落实鼓励生育的政策”。然而，2016年实行的二孩政策和2021年实行的三孩政策并未带来显著的生育增长。中国目前的生育率为1.0，低于日本，甚至低于近期低生育率预测值。
Low taxes make China stingy on welfare. Around 10 percent of its GDP goes toward social spending, compared to 20 percent in the United States and 30 percent among the more generous European states. China’s pension and health care spending are much lower than that of other rich countries. It is especially miserly with unemployment insurance: Only about a tenth of China’s unemployed are eligible for modest benefits. Occasionally, Chinese leftists have protested the state of affairs. Rather than provide better welfare in response, the state has detained students trying to organize Marxist reading groups.
因此，该党越来越公开地指责最后一个群体：女性。
Xi has forcefully pushed back on the idea that China needs more generous welfare. In a major speech in 2021, he said, “Even when we have reached a higher level of development . . . we should not go overboard with social transfers. For we must avoid letting people get lazy from their sense of entitlement to welfare.” Worrying that welfare could make the people lazy is one of those instances when a Communist Party leader sounds like Ronald Reagan.
如今在中国，做女人并不容易。许多女性没能挺过独生子女政策的冲击：中国男性比女性多出约四千万。尽管中国不乏成功的女企业家和亿万富翁，但习近平却将女性排挤出中国政府的高层。他传递的主要信息是，女性必须成为温顺的家庭和睦的维护者，这意味着要多生孩子。这种论调也得到了社会各界的响应。对于年轻的中国女性来说，春节非但没有带来欢乐，反而成了令人烦恼的时期。她们不得不面对几十位亲戚，而这些亲戚似乎只会问一个问题：单身女性会问“你什么时候结婚？”，已婚女性则会问“你什么时候生孩子？”
China’s economic model isn’t a simple-minded application of Marxism. The Communist Party would say that its system is modulated by certain Chinese characteristics. The sort of central planning that is part of Marxist-Leninist states have certain resonances with the centuries-old predispositions of China’s engineering state, especially construction and control. But China has some element of capitalism as well, which explains why the country has created a far more durable economic model than the failed Soviet-style states.
记者兼社会学家莱塔·洪·芬彻（Leta Hong Fincher）记录了女性不得不忍受的种种明目张胆的侮辱，尤其来自官方媒体。在她的著作《剩女》（Leftover Women）中，她详细描述了女性一旦到了“不宜结婚”的年龄（官方媒体认为是27岁），就往往被抛弃（通常是被轻蔑地抛弃）。她记录了女性如何忍受各种各样对她们处境表示同情的侮辱性标题，例如“摆脱剩女陷阱的八个简单方法”，以及在妇女节后不久发表的专栏文章“剩女真的值得我们同情吗？ ”洪·芬彻写道，对单身进行污名化的目的是为了阻止城市女性进一步推迟结婚和生育。
Construction, capitalism, and control. These elements are sometimes in tension. After China’s digital platforms grew powerful and profitable, the Communist Party reined them in (the focus of my sixth chapter). It found a lot to dislike among tech tycoons and their business models. Companies and people were engaging in transactions—buying goods, borrowing money, contracting for services—without mediation by the state. And digital platforms created billionaires who could not resist flaunting their wealth or wisdom, much as their Silicon Valley counterparts do. Subsequently, the Communist Party smashed many of their businesses before they had begun to wield real power. The state wants to have the ultimate say in controlling economic relations throughout society.
即使女性已婚，官方媒体也毫不留情。新华社一篇社论敦促女性如果发现丈夫出轨不要大惊小怪：“当你发现他有外遇时，你可能会怒不可遏。但你必须明白，如果你大惊小怪，就是在给男人丢面子。不妨换个发型或穿衣风格。” 妇女联合会常常是这些信息的放大镜。由于它是国家指定的妇女事务机构，因此常常处于执行国家政策的位置。一位妇女联合会前雇员告诉《华尔街日报》，她所在的广州办事处用于资助社交媒体公司审查性别相关话题的预算，比用于妇女权益倡导的预算还要多。
The lack of a safety net is one of the reasons that Chinese households save a great deal of their income for contingencies. The engineering state likes that just fine. Xi’s generation came of age in the 1950s, when China imitated a Stalinist program for intensive control over enterprises as well as a focus on industrialization and heavy industry. If people can bear some pain now and save, the Communist Party has long been saying, then life in the future will be better.
随着邓小平（及其几位继任者）时期中国推行计划生育政策，习近平时期转向鼓励生育，中国再次依赖于国家工程手段。但国家开始意识到，这一转变已无法逆转。尽管国家拥有众多阻止生育的手段，却似乎找不到合适的工具来鼓励性行为。
Xi was born in 1953, the year that Beijing unveiled its First Five-Year Plan, which concentrated the state’s resources to build seven hundred industrial projects. Drawing directly from Soviet practices, it also had substantial aid from the Soviet Union, which provided technical guidance to projects that included metallurgy plants, chemical facilities, and defense projects. In 2020, Xi announced the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, the ambitions of which are more breathtaking than anything the Soviets attempted.
官方媒体越来越不遗余力地鼓励生育。2018年，两位学者提议设立一个“生育基金”，要求所有40岁以下的劳动者缴纳一定比例的款项，而生育多个孩子的夫妇可以申请该基金的补贴。这项提议被斥为对无子女者征税，最终不了了之。
The engineering state isn’t finished with building big. “We will perform basic scientific research on the origin and evolution of the universe, carry out interstellar exploration such as Mars orbiting and asteroid inspection,” goes the opening section of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan on science and technology. It gets better from there. “We will construct hard X-ray free-electron laser devices, high-altitude cosmic ray observation stations, comprehensive extreme condition experimental devices, deep underground cutting-edge physical experimental facilities with very low background radiation.” China wants not only to explore deep space but also to use “heavy icebreakers” for polar exploration in the deep sea.
2021年，一篇署名评论出现在一家官方媒体上，措辞异常激烈地要求所有共产党员生育三个孩子。“这不仅对家庭有益，”社论写道，“也符合国家发展需要。每个党员都应该承担生育三个孩子的责任！他们不能以任何软弱的理由不结婚，或者只生一两个孩子。”这篇社论在网上引发强烈抗议后被删除。要求政治忠诚的干部多生育子女并非新鲜事。不过，我认为海因里希·希姆莱的说法更精辟，他曾告诫党卫军军官们要多生孩子：“想想巴赫！他是家里的第十三个孩子！如果巴赫的母亲在生了第五个、第六个，甚至第十二个孩子之后说‘够了’，这也可以理解，那么巴赫的作品就永远不会被创作出来了。”
“We will add 3,000 kilometers of urban rail transit” states the section on mass transit. The plan specifies the sections of highways and high-speed rail that it will build. It has major targets for energy: “We will build hydropower bases on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River,” which will have triple the power-generating capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, and the construction of ultra-high voltage transmission lines to connect power from the country’s west to east. It has a plan for climate change, especially water management. Beijing will work on the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, which feels like a throwback to the Grand Canal of the seventh century AD. It involves a gigantic effort to draw water from China’s southern rivers toward its parched northern cities, along three canal systems, targeting completion in 2050. The plan envisions the creation of large water reservoirs across the country and the construction of major flood-control projects.
三十年来倡导独生子女的宣传效果显著。所有育龄妇女都成长于一个坚持“一胎或零胎”是最佳生育数量的中国。面对社会和政府要求多生孩子的压力，女性们在社交媒体上发布曾经遍布农村、呼吁家庭减少生育的标语图片进行反击。2021年中国社会调查显示，1995年后出生的中国女性中有一半表示她们希望只生一个或零个孩子。她们不得不忍受来自妇联和官方媒体的“霸凌”，这并没有让她们对生育充满热情。当东南某城市推出鼓励剩女嫁给农村失业男性的优惠政策时，女性们感到难以置信。一个女人为什么要放弃城市的工作去嫁给一个她认为不负责任的男人呢？由于中国法官越来越不愿意批准离婚，婚姻的吸引力进一步下降：2000 年代中期，离婚申请获准的比例为 70%，而十年后，这一比例下降到 40% 。
The Fourteenth Five-Year Plan outlines interstellar research and other state-directed megaprojects. There’s something for the ordinary consumer too, but it’s nowhere near as exciting. To promote consumption, the plan suggests measures like “expanding the coverage of e-commerce in rural areas,” “improving product recalls,” and “improving in-city duty-free shops.” Fine measures, but puny relative to orbiting Mars. The economic planners have obviously poured their hearts into the scientific projects, whereas the consumption measures look like a hasty afterthought. When Chinese officials talk about promoting consumption, it often involves building new malls or replacing old industrial equipment. In other words, it’s still more about investing to build stuff rather than shifting the propensity of households to spend a greater share of their income.
独生子女政策持续了一代半之久，其影响将持续更久。我对国家工程技术能否成功刺激生育率激增持怀疑态度。其他国家（如匈牙利、以色列等）也曾推行过鼓励生育的政策，但几乎没有证据表明这些政策能够长期有效地提高生育率。中国在生育政策方面正努力追赶其他国家，但受到技术和社会观念的制约。目前，中国只有六百家医院获得官方授权提供体外受精服务，而且国家明文禁止……未婚女性冷冻卵子。为了保存生育能力，一些单身女性被迫前往台湾或泰国寻求卵子冷冻服务。
Under Mao, China practiced a more literal form of Marxism, with full state control of the means of production. Deng Xiaoping pivoted the country away from that failed experiment. As Deng was fond of remarking, the defining feature of socialism was not economic redistribution but rather “concentrating resources to accomplish great tasks.” That flexible definition allowed for greater adaptability, generated higher growth, and sustained the regime into the twenty-first century. Under Deng’s definition, the United States has also achieved plenty of socialism. The Manhattan Project, the Interstate Highway System, and the Apollo Program all concentrated resources to accomplish great tasks. Maybe even Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative could have been understood as socialism.
正如习近平所承诺的那样，中国或许能够通过国家工程手段，比任何其他国家都更成功地推行鼓励生育政策。然而，到目前为止，育龄妇女对此并不感兴趣。或许国家会研发出某种技术手段来增加中国儿童的数量。但目前，这些努力还比较原始。城市妇女反映，她们经常接到社区官员的电话，询问她们何时打算要孩子。这些官员刨根问底，会问妇女上次月经是什么时候，而且还咄咄逼人，坚持认为养猫不能代替生孩子。最重要的是，他们一直在唠叨。一位妇女发帖说：“政府官员已经问了我五六次什么时候打算要孩子，而我的父母只问过我一次。”她接着说：“这些官员打电话只是为了催我，而不是为了提供任何帮助。”
When the engineering state works, it can produce beautiful cities like Shanghai. But Shanghai is exceptional: It has been China’s richest and most westernized city for the better part of a century. The engineering state also produces a lot of problems. To see them, we should return one more time to Guizhou.
如今，科技进步的国家不再仅仅关注女性，也开始关注男性。官方媒体也开始担忧“剩男”问题。数千万永远找不到妻子的中国男性可能会对公共安全构成威胁，正如一位大学研究人员所言，他们“可能会被逼到绑架妇女或沉迷于色情”。男性也纷纷在社交媒体上抱怨，现在做输精管结扎手术越来越难。一些医院拒绝为男性进行手术，除非他们能证明自己已有子女。国家卫生年鉴显示，中国的输精管结扎手术数量出现了惊人的下降。从2014年（习近平执政之初）的18.1万例骤降至2019年的不足5000例。在新时代，男性也开始体验计划生育的滋味。
Under the gleaming new bridges lurk not only poverty but also a massive debt burden. The underlying hope of Guizhou’s construction is that infrastructure will invite lasting economic activity. Part of that has worked out: Guizhou incomes have risen by nearly 10 percent annually from 2011 to 2022, driven partially by urbanization and by the tourism facilitated by new infrastructure.
独生子女政策是对人口可以轻易被操控这一观点的反驳。在这种情况下，社会工程已经产生了一种精神上的失败主义情绪，表现为整个社会普遍的疲惫。在中国实行独生子女政策整整四十年后，它将推行一项更为雄心勃勃的社会计划：从控制人们的身体到改造他们的灵魂，这一次借助了数字监控。
But most of Guizhou’s infrastructure spending looks dubious. Its super-high bridges aren’t producing the revenue to recoup anywhere near their super-high costs. Of Guizhou’s eleven airports, five have less than a dozen flights each week—and there are three more airports still under construction. Guizhou has become one of China’s most indebted provinces, and it’s starting to feel real fiscal distress. In an unusual move, Guiyang’s finance bureau issued a public outcry in 2022 that it was at the end of its ability to deal with the debt. Quickly afterward, the government deleted its own admission.
第五章 零新冠疫情
Guizhou’s debt has kindled Beijing’s wrath. In China, the only people scarier than debt collectors are political inspectors from the central government. The Communist Party has unleashed teams of officers from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to descend on Guizhou. They are unbound by even the modest levels of legal niceties afforded in China. Rather than investigating legal crimes, their remit is to find “violations of party discipline,” a nebulous charge that includes not only corruption but also misuse of public funds and political disloyalty to the Communist Party. That makes the commission akin to the Inquisition, enforcing doctrine and discipline on its members.
中国应对新冠疫情的举措，充分体现了工程型国家的所有优点和弊端。它有力地提醒我们，工程型国家能够完成其他国家几乎不敢尝试的事情，同时也揭示了其死板的执行方式如何给人类福祉和自由带来悲剧性的后果。我亲身经历了中国为遏制这种高传染性病毒而推行的三年“清零”战略。第一年，疫情远在异国他乡肆虐，中国仿佛进入了一片宁静祥和的境地。第二年，情况依然不错，但我们都开始焦虑不安，想知道政府将如何逐步退出这项政策。到了第三年，一切都彻底崩溃了。
Financial inquisitors found something in Liupanshui, the westernmost city in Guizhou, home to the world’s highest bridge. Li Zaiyong, sixty-two, was a handsome man who had big plans for his city. In the three years that Li was party secretary of Liupanshui, he authorized twenty-three tourism projects, including elegant Chinese temples and replicas of European town squares, which looked pretty from a distance but poorly painted up close. Li aimed to transform his city into a ski town, though Liupanshui would be lucky to get a few inches of snow each year. To attract skiers, he built a cable lift that he declared to be Asia’s longest, as well as dozens of artificial snowmakers to spray powder on bunny slopes. And Li blanketed the hillsides with orchards of chestnut rose hips, a bulbous yellow fruit bristling with spiny protuberances, which looks slightly nightmarish but is much loved by locals for its sweet flesh. With enough will and snowmakers, Li believed he could create a tourism hub from scratch.
2020年，新冠疫情爆发一年后，我从北京搬到了上海。吸引我的既有北京浓重的政治氛围，也有上海繁荣的商业气息。
Liupanshui locals greeted Li’s plans mostly with skepticism. Though their region is home to waterfalls, karst caves, and stunning green mountains, the city itself has little of beauty. Local industry consisted of coal and iron mining. One man wondered to a TV crew, “We don’t have much to see here. How much money would we have to spend to create something worthwhile?” Li Zaiyong believed a great deal, and he mobilized a great deal of funds to make things happen. Since he was the top official in the city, local banks had a hard time saying no to him.
几个世纪以来，北京一直是中国的帝国中心。1949年，斯大林主义建筑师开始着手改造这座城市，以展现社会主义的辉煌。来自上海的游客喜欢取笑我们这些在北京的人：“既然能住在巴黎，为什么还要住在平壤？” 这真让人恼火。后来，新冠病毒从武汉爆发。疫情期间的管控措施让北京比平时更加严格。我听从了这些劝告，搬到了限制措施宽松得多的上海，生活确实变得更加轻松愉快。人们走在街上，在上海温暖的气候下，许多人都没有戴口罩，他们外出游玩，享受着美好时光。
But none of Li’s efforts bore fruit.
在苏联训练的工程师将北京改造成宏伟的城市之前，法国人建造上海是为了享乐。殖民列强将上海从十九世纪一个不起眼的贸易港口，变成了外国势力渗透中国庞大市场的滩头阵地。英国、美国和法国各自划定了飞地，让其居民可以凌驾于中国法律之上。世界第二大银行大楼就建在英美区，与保险公司、贸易公司和休闲俱乐部一起，在黄浦江的拐弯处聚集。这些欧洲殖民权力的见证——在建成之时，它们是亚洲最高的建筑之一——仿佛是从泰晤士河岸边拔地而起。它们至今依然屹立，成为上海天际线上美丽而奇特的组成部分。中国国旗在每座尖塔或塔顶迎风飘扬：这是现代国家毫不掩饰地提醒人们，殖民时代已经结束。
Liupanshui never developed into an appealing ski destination: China’s skiers went to the northeast in the winter, which has real slopes and real snow. Richer tourists from Beijing and Shanghai skipped Li’s gaudy European facsimiles for the real deal in Venice and Vienna. The faux European town squares have been taken over by local black goats, which treat the lawns as grazing grounds. Even the chestnut rose bushes died.
法国人设立了一个独立于英美租界的租界。这片区域与其说是林立着宏伟的建筑，不如说是遍布着花园和住宅。街道两旁绿树成荫，这种树木在伦敦和巴黎的公园里很常见。上海是亚洲第一个拥有现代化设施的城市，例如公共电灯、有轨电车、证券交易所、百货商店和电影院。难怪它当时被誉为“东方巴黎”。
All that the city got for its troubles was $21 billion of new debt, an enormous amount for a poor city in a poor province. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection denounced Li’s investments as “vanity projects” and hustled him into its secretive judicial proceedings. In 2024, state media made an example of Li in a primetime documentary. He still had good looks in prison. But detention had turned his hair gray, whether from stress or lack of access to hair dye. As Li spoke inside a dimly lit room, he explained his reckless spending: “It was the nation’s money, not mine.”
上海当时由外国人而非中国人掌控，而且这些外国人都是商人，而非官员。尽管权力分散导致偶尔出现摩擦，但各方都和谐共处，共同将上海打造成一座奢靡之城。富裕家庭可以购买纽约的时尚服饰。梅西百货在上海的主要步行街上设有分店。而那些寻求不那么健康娱乐的人，只需几条街之外就能找到——在歌舞厅和爵士俱乐部，在歌舞女郎和日本艺伎的陪伴下，在中式纸牌游戏和西式老虎机中寻欢作乐。二十世纪初，上海是世界妓院之都。这座城市也遍布鸦片馆，消耗了全球约90%的毒品。专业的中国犯罪组织掌控着这些罪恶的交易，其势力之强大，堪比城中任何其他政治势力。
Li misused public funds. But he was also playing a political game recognizable to any other party secretary. One of the Communist Party’s personnel practices (inherited from imperial times) is to rotate officials between various jurisdictions, forcing them to gain broad experience and preventing them from drawing their power base from their home province. China has few officials with careers like Joe Biden’s, who, before becoming vice president and then president, spent his entire political life representing Delaware. Li Zaiyong had been an official all over Guizhou before landing in Liupanshui. The way for him to reach even higher office was to demonstrate a track record for growth.
20世纪30年代，日本开始残酷入侵上海，这座城市逐渐黯淡下来。在那十年间，上海变成了形形色色人群的聚集地：这里依然是西方商人的家园，他们通过向亚洲买家引进护肤霜、香烟和现代奢侈品而发家致富；新兴的中国中产阶级在全国最大的工业城市工作；数量庞大的流浪工人、乞丐和孤儿生活在赤贫之中；犹太人、白俄难民和无国籍难民的生活也好不到哪里去；还有少数超级富豪将这座城市当作他们的海外游乐场。左翼人士也在这令人陶醉的环境中组织起来。1921年，十几位知识分子聚集在法租界，创立了中国共产党。
The political system of the engineering state rewards construction. China’s political leaders, after all, are selected, not elected. To reach higher office, they are given probing assessments by the Organization Department, which, along with the Propaganda Department and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, are the Communist Party’s most important governing instruments. The Organization Department evaluates local leaders on a few soft metrics, like leadership, loyalty, and resistance to graft. The department also assessed whether an official was capable of stimulating economic growth while suppressing political dissent.
上海在经历了日本的入侵和毛泽东的统治后，于20世纪80年代再次崛起。中央政府对上海的偏袒如此明目张胆，以至于其他城市的乘客在等公交车时会喊道：“让上海同志先上车！”引来周围一阵阵的嘲笑。如今，上海那段不堪回首的过去已不复存在。但其殖民历史的遗迹仍然随处可见，只是如今经过了迎合消费者的改造。现代感十足。黄浦江西岸优雅的石砌新古典主义建筑与对岸上海标志性的摩天大楼遥相呼应，后者再次成为亚洲最高的建筑，只是现在外墙包裹着玻璃。
But few party secretaries have great ideas for growing the township or province they’ve landed in. Furthermore, since local governments don’t have property taxes, they primarily fund themselves through land sales to real estate developers. This combination of personnel policy and fiscal quirks produces officials like Li Zaiyong who invest in glamorous projects and whose failures are apparent only after they’ve left office.
我在上海的家位于原法租界，那里至今仍遍布悬铃木和咖啡馆。我非常喜欢这片区域。从我家往南走二十分钟，就能到一家由法国移民开的面包店，那里供应苹果馅饼和法棍。往北走二十分钟，就是全球六家星巴克臻选烘焙工坊之一——这家两层楼的店面设有六个服务台——星巴克将其宣传为“咖啡激情的戏剧化圣殿”。往东走二十分钟，就能到达一座漂亮的灰砖博物馆，这里曾是中共中央第一次全国代表大会的举办地。博物馆周围是一个购物中心，里面有Lululemon、Carhartt和Le Labo等品牌。如果夏季旅行团在排队参观共产党博物馆时觉得太热，可以去隔壁的Shake Shack吃个冰冻蛋奶沙司。
Li’s larger goal was to impress his superiors, and on that he succeeded for a while. The party promoted him to be a vice governor of Guizhou, a position he held for five years before his fall. When the debt came due, Li’s career was over. A few months after his televised confession, a provincial court sentenced Li to death with a two-year reprieve.
每当我回忆起上海，我怀念的不仅仅是它绚丽的都市风光。在这些繁华的都市中，还隐藏着一些世界上最棒的餐厅。
Li wasn’t the only Guizhou official to be detained. Beijing investigated a huge number of mid-to high-level provincial officials in 2023, ensnaring even a former party secretary—Guizhou’s highest official. Again, the situation in Guizhou was not an aberration from China’s growth strategy. Dubious projects can be found all over the country, since nearly every province has laughable replicas of European town squares that fail to attract tourists, underused infrastructure that can’t repay bondholders, and overbuilt cities that struggle to chart a course away from resource extraction.
虽然川菜可能是中国最令人兴奋的菜系，但我认为上海才是中国美食的精髓所在。几个世纪以来，上海一直是中国最富饶、最肥沃的地区，孕育了精致的菜肴。早餐可能是一打用竹蒸笼盛装的小笼包，蘸着醋和几片姜丝食用。上海面条淋上葱油，配上一块红烧肉和几片海带。上海菜会随着季节变化而变化，充分展现了当地的物产丰饶。秋季，宴席上摆满了清蒸大闸蟹，人们不仅珍视它鲜嫩的蟹肉，更推崇它鲜亮的橙色蟹黄，蟹黄咸鲜可口，口感Q弹，如同蒸鸭蛋的蛋黄。春天更是如此。市场里摆满了……各种绿叶蔬菜杂糅在一起，上海人喜欢用少许烈酒翻炒。竹笋在天气转暖时蓬勃生长，厨师们会把它们放入汤或炖菜中，以激发其鲜甜的口感。
Li dreamed up crackpot schemes for development. It would have been what any party official would do if they were dropped into a land as unpromising as western Guizhou. But he had grown too brazen in a political game very much designed by the central government in Beijing.
那年春天，上海真是美好。中国的“清零”策略基本遏制了病毒的传播。到了2020年4月，也就是武汉疫情爆发几个月后，当美国人还在家隔离时，我已经可以出门去餐厅吃饭，并在那年夏天晚些时候去电影院了。* 2020年，当我问父母是否应该去宾夕法尼亚州探望他们时，他们的回答与典型的中国人截然不同：他们强烈要求我不要去。妈妈告诉我，待在中国比待在特朗普的美国要好得多。他们一切都好，我很高兴他们不需要我去。
The engineering state is not all glittering Shanghai. It is sometimes Liupanshui, a city that made all the wrong investments. Sometimes it is Tianjin, which was a success until it overbuilt. When I lived in Beijing, I heard the name of nearby Tianjin used as a byword for excess. One day, I took a thirty-minute train ride from Beijing to see it for myself.
我并不害怕病毒本身，我害怕的只是如果我离开中国后重新入境的流程。中国当时阻止病毒传播的核心策略之一，就是将所有飞抵中国的旅客集中送往政府指定的隔离酒店，在那里，根据不同地区的规定，人们将被限制在狭小的房间里两到三周，无法离开。
Tianjin is relatively rich. In the 2000s, it spent heavily to build a financial district, styling itself “China’s Manhattan.” It was a fanciful branding exercise, though the city did manage to import a real institution from Manhattan: The Juilliard School opened its first international campus there in 2020. Tianjin used to be among China’s most industrialized cities—when the country looked to the Soviet Union for all its economic ideas. Now it is emblematic of China’s rust belt and nothing like a real financial zone. The skyscrapers in Binhai, the zone that Tianjin has designated a financial district, are mostly empty. On the weekday that I visited in 2020, the central mall in Binhai had a few people walking around, but almost none of the commercial buildings looked occupied. China’s Manhattan was hollow.
于是，我把时间都花在了中国，比如骑自行车从贵阳到重庆。2021年，我读了一些巨著，比如狄更斯的《荒凉山庄》和托尔斯泰的《战争与和平》。我还遇到了我现在的妻子西尔维娅，她是密歇根大学的教授，当时正在纽约大学上海分校休假。作为一名研究科技文化的民族志学者，西尔维娅曾在中国生活过，并一直保持着与中国的联系。西尔维娅2021年离开的美国，当时仍然是一个充满困境的地方，人们很少进行面对面的交流。因此，她比以往任何时候都更加兴奋能够回到中国。她获得了一份难得的签证，并以此为契机展开了研究。隔离期结束后，西尔维娅在上海充满活力的街头感受到了自由。我们骑着自行车穿梭于城市各处的咖啡馆和饺子店，彼此逐渐熟悉起来。
Tianjin has built not only China’s third-tallest skyscraper (ninety-seven floors, little occupied) but also one of its most photogenic libraries. The Dutch architects behind Tianjin’s Binhai Library put a bright white sphere in its center, around which undulating curves make up shelving space. Except few of these shelves held any books. Once I got up close, I could see that the beautiful shelves had only digital prints of book spines. All around me were people taking selfies rather than browsing or reading.
但情况并非完全正常。进入大多数公共场所——我的办公室、餐厅，甚至许多户外商业区——我都必须拿出手机，向门口的壮汉展示我的接触追踪二维码。绿色代表正常，黄色则表示我曾与确诊病例有过一定程度的接触；如果是红色二维码则无需出示，因为政府很可能已经将感染者隔离。用于定位个人位置的基站和接触追踪人员有时会出错。即使你从未进入过一家已知有感染病例的餐厅，仅仅路过也可能使你的二维码变成黄色。人们经常抱怨，为什么他们的二维码不再是绿色，却无人解释。但隔离和出行限制似乎只是值得遵守的不便。每次进入公共场所都要摸索着拿出手机打开接触追踪应用程序，当我看到其他国家正在遭受的苦难时，这种感觉也就不算什么了。中国逐步加强了这些管控措施，因此这些循序渐进的要求更容易被接受。
I sometimes think of Tianjin’s library as a metaphor for China’s economy: great hardware that looks impressive from a distance, not filled with the softer stuff that actually matters. Tianjin could have focused on filling its amazing skyscrapers with better businesses. Instead, it could only build more hollow shells, while it gained considerable debt.
但我意识到脚下的土地正在发生变化。我的工作很大一部分是报道美中关系，而这种关系在疫情爆发前就已经开始恶化。2020年全年，特朗普总统不断抨击中国科技公司，即便出行变得更加困难，我也坚持报道。但中国国内发生的事情更加出乎意料。随着中国控制住了疫情，而世界其他国家却未能幸免，习近平的胆子也越来越大。他一方面宣布要实现“共同繁荣”，另一方面却严厉打击数字平台和房地产开发商。我的客户有很多问题要问我，因为他们几乎找不到在中国的人。他们问我，在疫情爆发之后，怎么可能出现这种情况？在武汉，中国似乎比任何国家都更好地控制了疫情。我如实回答他们：中国目前做得很好。
Moody’s, the American credit rating firm, listed Tianjin and Guizhou as China’s two most heavily indebted regions. Each has a debt-to-GDP ratio approaching that of Italy’s. In 2018, Tianjin acknowledged that Binhai’s growth was far overstated, forcing it to revise down its GDP by nearly 20 percent. It is rare for the Chinese government to acknowledge data fraud. So it’s all the more curious that the central government is trying to pull off another major development scheme nearby. Not far from Tianjin is one of Xi Jinping’s signature new initiatives: the Xiong’an New Area. Xi has declared that Xiong’an will be the country’s most modern city and central to China’s “strategy for the next millennium.” Xiong’an is likely to receive extensive new investments because Xi has given it so much personal attention—unless that attention wanders, or if Xi is no longer around, in which case Xiong’an could turn into another Binhai.
2021年12月，我们开始听说新冠病毒的奥密克戎毒株，科学家告诉我们，它的传染性远超之前的变种。我在当年最后一天发表的年度信中，表达了对奥密克戎毒株可能对中国造成的影响的担忧。“我担心它的传染性如此之强，以至于政府会……实施比以往任何措施都更加严厉的封锁。”在推特上，我的言论则更为轻松：“为了应对可能出现的严厉封锁，我在家准备了三样东西：月饼（高热量且易于保存）；一辆带骑行台的自行车（用于在元宇宙中骑行）；以及一本希伯来圣经（罗伯特·阿尔特译本）。”
The creation of urban megahubs, like the zone connecting Beijing to Tianjin and Xiong’an, is a part of a bet. The central government has designated a dozen urban regions for concentrated investments. The five largest—Beijing in the north, Shanghai-Hangzhou-Suzhou in the east, Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou in the south, Wuhan-Changsha in central China, and Chongqing-Chengdu in the west—average 110 million people, each nearly the population of Japan. The state is investing in rail, subways, buses, and highways to knit them into regional hubs. Alain Bertaud, a former principal urban planner at the World Bank, has told the Economist how these agglomerations can achieve previously unseen levels of productivity, representing the difference between England and the rest of the world during the Industrial Revolution.
西安已经让我们提前领略了控制更具传染性的病毒株需要付出怎样的努力。2021年底，这座西北城市进入封城状态。居民们在寒冬腊月就面临食物短缺，各种骇人听闻的故事开始流传。一位怀孕八个月的妇女感到腹痛，想要入院治疗，但医院工作人员拒绝让她进入，除非她接受核酸检测（检测结果可能需要几个小时才能出来），并且结果呈阴性。两个小时后，她开始大量出血。在医院外，她苦苦哀求，最终流产。她的故事迅速传播开来，直到审查人员将其删除。
It’s part of a growth strategy that involves building a lot of stuff. That’s not something that only China’s government does. Its companies do it too. The United States and Europe have launched trade wars on the basis of the overproduction by Chinese firms, lodging diplomatic protests and countervailing tariffs against steel, aluminum, solar photovoltaic panels, and electric vehicles. The engineering state is much more interested in promoting building and manufacturing than services.
2022年春天，上海的繁华景象戛然而止。鲜有人能买到时令蔬菜或竹笋。中央政府下令对这座拥有2500万人口的城市实施封城，居民们几乎两个月都无法出门。在疫情的大部分时间里，上海以相对温和的方式应对病毒，堪称典范。这或许可以算得上是国家工程技术的胜利。然而，随后上海却经历了可能是任何国家都未曾尝试过的规模最大的隔离措施。
China now has the capacity to produce around sixty million cars a year (one-third electric, two-thirds combustion), out of an annual global market of around ninety million cars sold. China’s domestic market absorbs less than half of its production. China produces so much in part because every province wants to be an automotive manufacturing hub. The country has over a hundred automotive brands, most of them small, all of them fighting for sales. The competition is so fierce in part because auto companies receive extensive support from local governments, who all try to promote their champion through cheap credit and consumer rebates to local companies. Shanghai, for example, is full of the locally produced SAIC-Volkswagen cars, while Shenzhen is dominated by its own champion, BYD.
春天伊始，奥密克戎降临上海。2022年3月初，上海市政府宣布，一家用于隔离境外入境人员的酒店防疫措施存在漏洞，导致几名清洁人员感染，并将病毒带入社区。上海随即启动了其如今已为人熟知的疫情应对方案：开展大规模核酸检测，将检测呈阳性者集中隔离（通常是拥有数千张床位的体育场馆或会展中心），追踪每例确诊病例的行踪，并对密切接触者居住的街区实施封锁。
Sometimes not even bankruptcy can stop an automaker from production. Zhido, a producer of small EVs, went bust in 2019; five years later, it had restructured, with government help, and restarted its production lines. NIO Inc. was right on the brink of bankruptcy in 2020 until its home government of Hefei rescued it; the company has since turned around its fortunes and is once more shipping its electric vehicles. The United States offered extraordinary bailouts to Detroit automakers in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In China, local governments help companies out every day. As a result, few of the brands can achieve really big scale, and China has to depend on exports to absorb all the vehicles domestic consumers aren’t buying.
封城的原则很简单：除了接受政府组织的核酸检测（鼻咽拭子或咽拭子）外，任何人都不允许离开公寓。上海几乎所有人都住在由几栋楼组成的小区里，小区下面有一个庭院。我住的楼是一栋六层的小公寓，里面住了几十户人家。然而，大多数人住在更高的楼盘里，每栋楼可能有几百户人家。在正常情况下，高层住宅可能更受欢迎，但我很快就会发现自己住在小公寓里是多么幸运。大型小区更容易被封城，因为一个病例就可能导致整栋楼被封锁。
China’s government is much more focused on the smooth functioning of the supply side of the economy rather than on helping consumers. This principle became really apparent in 2020. While Western governments reacted to the global pandemic by sending cash payments to households—in the United States, three rounds totaling $3,200—Beijing gave little financial support to people. It offered only meager increases to unemployment insurance, which only a fraction of the millions of unemployed workers were able to claim.
上海的疫情应对策略曾成功遏制了之前的疫情爆发，但这次却失灵了。整个三月，新增病例数每天都在攀升。七英尺高的塑料路障在全市各处的公寓小区周围拔地而起，标志着出现了确诊病例。餐馆、咖啡馆和其他商铺纷纷关门歇业。商业噪音逐渐减少，取而代之的是广播里此起彼伏的声音。有好几次，他们把我所在的小区所有居民都叫到附近的检测点进行检测。谢天谢地，我的检测结果一直正常，我认识的人也都平安无事。如果检测结果呈阳性，政府会将你送往集中隔离点；如果卫生部门根据你的活动记录怀疑你感染了病毒，你可能会被禁止外出几天。我的几个朋友……朋友们被告知必须待在室内，因为他们与可能感染病毒的人有过密切接触。
Beijing decided instead that the best way it could help workers was to get them back to work. In practice, it meant assisting companies to restart production rather than sending cash to households. It did that with its pursuit of the zero-Covid strategy, which involved taking drastic action to seal the country off from foreign travelers and imposing protracted lockdowns wherever it detected the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Beijing wanted especially for manufacturers to maintain operation. While the rest of the world was having trouble producing stuff—masks and cotton swabs, electronics for remote work—and while foreign consumers had stimulus money to spend, Chinese factories were positioned to meet the world’s demand.
三月下旬，一种恐惧的气氛笼罩着上海。在一个格外诡异的日子里，我和西尔维娅在一个小时内先后从三个朋友那里得知，他们三天内都不能出门：原来是邻居与确诊病例有过密切接触。那天早上，我和西尔维娅骑车去了堤岸大厦附近的一家咖啡馆。堤岸大厦是一座标志性的装饰艺术风格建筑，曾经是犹太难民的住所。我们一边吃着羊角面包，一边感叹这座城市从未如此安静过。骑车回家的路上，我们看到堤岸大厦已经变了样。医护人员和警察封锁了所有出口，互相帮忙穿上用蓝色胶带固定的全白防护服。他们看起来像是要围攻这座大楼。这些被戏称为“大白”的工作人员，成了令人恐惧的幽灵，象征着“清零”的决心。
For a while, that scheme worked. China’s trade surplus hit a record high in 2021, and then again in 2022, approaching almost a trillion dollars. In spite of the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on gigantic categories of Chinese-made goods, the United States and China experienced record trade in 2022. China’s manufacturing surge, however, could not make up for the losses created by lockdowns elsewhere in the economy. But Beijing’s attitude was that so long as manufacturers could crank out more goods, then the economy was robust and there would be little need to hand out checks or any other sort of welfare.
在政府每日例行记者会上，上海官员一再否认将对全市实施全面封锁。他们告诉我们，疫情在掌控之中，尽管每日新增感染人数都在增加。3月24日，官方媒体《中国日报》的头条新闻是“上海没有封城计划”。3月26日，上海市卫健委委员吴帆在记者会上声称，上海“太重要了，不能封城”。随后，她略带傲慢地补充道：“上海这座城市不仅仅属于上海人民，它是全球经济的驱动力，在这里封城将会震动世界。”
And the manufacturers were cranking out a lot of goods. In the fall of 2020, I remember visiting the factory of a technology manufacturer outside of Shanghai. An executive had invited me in to tour his new production line. He was a Chinese national who had mostly worked for American companies and still traveled between the two countries. As we sipped tea in his office after the tour, we chatted about why the United States was then mired in production difficulties, unable to make much of the personal protective equipment that people wanted. “American manufacturers constantly asked themselves whether making masks and cotton swabs was part of their ‘core competence.’ Most of them decided not.” He put down his teacup and looked at me. “Chinese companies decided that making money is their core competence, therefore they go and make masks, or whatever else the market needs.”
在吴帆发表挑战性宣言的第二天，上海宣布封城。公告措辞十分温和。上海将实施“部分暂停”，进入为期八天的“静默期”。首先是东部城区封城，然后是西部城区。市政府要求民众居家办公，所有企业停业。桥梁和隧道……连接城市两部分（被黄浦江分隔）的道路被封锁。政府承诺提供食品并确保医疗服务。他们表示，所有封锁措施将于4月5日结束。
In 2020, I could have picked up face masks that were branded Foxconn (the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer), BYD (the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer), or JD.com (China’s second-largest e-commerce platform). Companies retooled some of their production lines to get into the masks and money business. Chinese conglomerates rarely hesitate to go after the core business lines of others. Huawei, for example, expanded from making telecommunications infrastructure equipment to tread on companies like Xiaomi, which makes smartphones. And both have now leapt into the automotive business. This sort of expansion is driven both by the fiercely competitive market environments and by government subsidies that make it easier for companies to try their hand at making new products.
上海的封城时间远远超过了最初的预期。在疫情相对平静的时期，确诊病例却激增。封城并非原计划的八天，而是持续了八周，最终在六月才得以解封。我常常想起《中国日报》那篇题为“上海没有封城计划”的报道。这篇报道可以有两种解读。最初，我理解为上海否认会实施封城。而现在，我意识到它完全准确地解释了接下来发生的事情：上海根本没有计划让两千五百万人居家隔离八周。
They allow companies to unleash a flood of undifferentiated products, ruthlessly underbid each other, and pray their competitors run out of money before they do. China now dominates the solar industry, but almost no firms are happy because of the overcapacity. Many of these Chinese companies will inevitably go out of business, after they’ve dragged down their competitors all over the world in brutal price wars. This trend has produced a frustrating quirk in China’s equity markets. Financial investors have seen that there is no relationship between Chinese stock market performance and GDP growth. Although the economy has grown by a factor of eight in real terms between 1992 and 2018, the Shanghai Composite Index has been one of the worst-performing major indices. In China, for a variety of reasons that includes weak corporate governance, onshore stocks dance to their own tune. Part of the reason is that even for technologies that Chinese firms dominate—like solar photovoltaic panels—few firms are able to make much profit.
政府无人机在城市各处盘旋。自疫情爆发以来，政府就派出配备扩音器的无人机，对不遵守规定的民众进行训斥。如果有人没戴口罩，可能会听到头顶上方嗡嗡作响的无人机，然后传来刺耳的咆哮声，命令他戴上口罩或回家。上海一位社区官员描述了无人机如果发现非法聚集人群会发生什么：“无人机会试图劝阻”，换句话说，就是训斥他们，“地面部队会实时跟进。”
Financial investors have no need for our sympathy. There are far bigger victims of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
在上海封城初期，无人机的一次使用更加令人费解。上海最高精神卫生官员在一场原本平淡无奇的疫情通报会上，突然抛出一句出人意料的妙语，要求上海市民“压抑灵魂对自由的渴望”。社交媒体用户立即开始用这句话制作表情包进行嘲讽。人们并不习惯官僚们说出如此“诗意”的话。四月的一个晚上，随着封城措施全面加强，一架携带扩音器的无人机开始向挤满居民的公寓楼里播放这句话：“压抑灵魂对自由的渴望”，配音是一位女性的声音。无人机上循环播放着语音提示，同时一盏灯闪烁着：“不要开窗唱歌，这会传播病毒。”
The environment is a prominent victim of all this construction. China’s environmental reviews are not unserious, but they are almost always subordinate to economic development. All those highways are made from hulking amounts of steel and concrete, which have pulverized many habitats. Their construction also requires enormous amounts of energy: China now burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. Though the country’s air quality has improved over the past decade, this obsession with heavy industry is why a gray and dreadful smog still descends on many of its cities.
这句话不再好笑了。
China doesn’t seek to protect the environment. It tries to engineer away the problems. Over the past five years, the country has been repeatedly struck by climate-related tragedies, and it is hard to prove that the investments China has made in flood control and water diversion megaprojects have improved matters. In the summer of 2022, a year after my bike trip to Chongqing, I returned to find the city in a historic drought. I was stunned to see that one of its two rivers, the Jialing, had nearly run dry; even the mighty Yangtze had prominent dry patches. People tried to avoid heat by staying indoors. But many of them couldn’t turn on air conditioning because the rivers had lost so much flow that even the hydropower failed.
2022年4月，上海的压力飙升至难以想象的水平。
China’s other climate disasters have included major floods in Henan province (in which fourteen people drowned in a subway train, according to official numbers), power outages in central China over the winter of 2022, and floods that displaced more than a hundred thousand people in Guangdong in 2024. Perhaps megaprojects have ameliorated what were already disastrous conditions; perhaps they had no impact at all. But environmental scientists do often question whether this sort of engineering has made things worse. The construction of a dam might well provide flood relief, or it could worsen a drought by reducing downstream flow and increasing evaporation losses.
对大多数人来说，最主要的担忧是如何在无法出门的情况下保障食物供应。傍晚时分突然宣布的封城令，让位于浦东（城市东部）的居民只有几个小时的时间来储备食物。而我居住的浦西（人口更密集的西部城区）则有四天的准备时间。由于市政府官员一再否认封城，许多人放松了警惕，未能及时储备必需品。即使是那些能够储备物资的人，也很难保证水果蔬菜在十天左右就能保鲜。
When the state builds big dams, it floods ecosystems and dispossesses residents. The world’s biggest dam is the Three Gorges Dam, not far from Chongqing. Building it has demanded the resettlement of up to 1.5 million people. The government’s compensation for resettlement is often generous. But it has limited patience for suffering residents who block development, whether that’s a new highway or a new mall, eventually moving holdouts by hook or by crook.
上海市政府承诺会派发食品。一开始还不错：我认识的上海居民都收到了一些包裹，里面装着各种水果、蔬菜和肉类，虽然种类不全，但总算让人感到欣慰。然而，政府的派发很快就停止了。4月5日，原本应该结束封锁的日子，上海却宣布需要延长封锁。从那时起，人们对食物的担忧就加剧了。到4月中旬，我几乎所有的朋友都至少经历过几天的食物短缺。有两对父母告诉我，他们为了给年幼的孩子省饭，自己都放弃了饭吃。我的美国朋友艾玛打开政府派发的食品包裹时，发现里面是一只刚宰杀的鸡，身上还挂着几根羽毛。她不知道该怎么处理，而且也没有其他食物可吃。于是，她打开了YouTube。鼓起勇气后，她找到一个学习如何给鸡开膛破肚的视频，一边看着视频里的人掏空内脏，一边皱起了眉头。
The worst-affected people are targeted minority groups, who have to bear Beijing’s social engineering. The state has singled out, for example, Tibetans, who are forced to relocate from high-altitude mountains, where they are able to graze their yaks and horses, to lower-altitude farms in part to monitor them more easily. What are yak herders supposed to do when they move down to apartment blocks? Rural people who know only their farming or pastoralist lives are often at loose ends when the government resettles them into rows upon rows of high-rises. Two researchers at the University of Colorado have documented China’s coercive tactics to compel locals to leave their homes. It is a process it calls “thought work,” ranging from presenting resettlement as a voluntary and happy choice to holding intensive one-on-one meetings with recalcitrant folks who do not want to leave. Officials mix inducements with threats until they wear down the farmers. Thus, the state has been able to achieve “voluntary” resettlement rates of 100 percent.
由于缺乏政府帮助，人们尝试在生鲜配送平台上订购食品杂货，但平台很快就不堪重负。当时的办法是设置很多闹钟——早上6点美团、6点半点叮咚、7点盒马鲜生、8点永辉——以便在这些平台上的食物被抢购一空前的半分钟内下单。食品供应链崩溃的原因有很多。其中之一是政府限制货车司机向上海运送食品，担心他们会将病毒带到遥远的地方。货车司机要跨省运输，常常不得不排队等候，待在驾驶室里直到新冠病毒检测结果出来。一段疯传的视频显示，一名司机因为交通管制不允许他下车，只能举着自己的粪便瓶。他愤怒地咆哮，说这些管制措施让他感觉自己像“被囚禁的动物”。这些限制迫使许多人辞职。4月中旬，上海的货车运输量只有正常水平的15%。
Reckless construction has often produced rubbish quality. Builders employed cheap materials to construct even schoolhouses. The 2008 earthquake that tore through Sichuan also shattered thousands of schoolrooms, killing five thousand children (according to official figures). Grieving parents who tried to take investigations of official corruption into their own hands have faced detention. Public works give government officials plenty of discretion about how to build a project, giving them a lot of opportunities to accept kickbacks. Even if officials are upstanding, the developer might contract out the construction to a lower-cost builder, who takes a margin and subcontracts out again, and on and on until it reaches someone willing to cut costs to the bone. Parents called the collapsed schools in Sichuan “tofu houses” for their fragility. Building big, in other words, does not always mean building well.
许多运抵城市的食品在送达居民手中之前就已经腐烂变质。组织食品配送的责任落在了上海的社区委员会身上，这是政府最低层级的官僚机构，其工作人员大多是老年志愿者，他们更习惯于宣传工作，而不是食品配送物流所需的繁重Excel表格操作。政府还暂停了原本运转良好的食品配送服务。身穿芥末黄或浅蓝色制服、将食品装在箱子里绑在摩托车后座上的配送员也面临着封锁。一些人为了继续工作，选择流落街头。他们只能睡在桥下或其他公共场所，但却能穿梭于城市之间，通过配送食品赚取更高的佣金。
Many construction projects represent a tremendous waste of the steel and cement that was produced by burning so much coal. There are better uses for these resources: softer concerns around health and education, not the gigantic hardware of more highways.
2022年，上海人生活在中国最富裕的城市，却还要为饥饿担忧，这让他们感到不可思议。人们暗自议论，中国在这座资本主义程度最高的城市提前十年实现了习近平提出的旨在减少贫富差距的“共同繁荣”新政。尽管一些与政府关系密切的人可能更容易获得食物，但几乎所有人——富人——都面临着同样的困境。无论贫富、老幼、本地人还是外国人，都面临着同样的饥饿困境。一些名人在网上抱怨，他们不得不花费近300美元才能买到一些蔬菜和鸡蛋。该国一位顶尖的风险投资家，同时也是多家食品配送公司的投资者，也在社交媒体上发帖询问人们如何才能获得食物。
Though rich students in Shanghai score splendidly on international exams, education in China’s rural areas is still often abysmal. The Covid pandemic revealed that the country’s health care system is weak, with shortages of doctors and nurses and six times fewer intensive care unit beds per capita than in the United States. An official like Li Zaiyong might be more interested in building a gleaming hospital filled with sophisticated equipment. Their attention drifts, however, when it comes to installing the trained technicians capable of operating the facility, since the Communist Party is better at rewarding new construction than health outcomes. The engineering state is focused mostly on monumentalism. Though there are many public toilets, provision of toilet paper is only a sometimes thing. Nowhere in China is it advisable to drink tap water. Not even Shanghai.
随着民众对饥饿的抱怨声越来越大，共产党采取了一种屡试不爽的策略：寻找替罪羊。官方媒体报道了一些居民囤积食品而非分发给邻居的案例。这些案例或许属实，但并非问题的症结所在。根本问题在于，突如其来的封城令严重破坏了上海的食品供应链，长途和本地配送都陷入瘫痪。
The engineering state has engaged in wild spasms of building over the past four decades. That has achieved considerable wonders and a fair degree of harm. The future would be better if China could learn to build less, while the United States learns to build more.
四月下旬，人们找到了一线生机。我的朋友欧文在封城前几个月从北京搬到了上海。欧文是一位三十出头的美国人，大学毕业后在北京一家政策研究机构工作。他独自住在浦西一栋简朴的公寓楼里，楼下是一家面馆，窗外就是一家小超市。由于欧文住在浦西，封城前他有更多的时间囤货。封城令宣布后的第二天，他早早起床去超市，发现还没开门就已经排起了长队。他设法抢到了几袋新鲜蔬菜和一些牛肉末。他把这些做成了肉酱，然后分装冷冻起来。
I’ve come to realize that there are many ways that China and the United States are inversions of each other. Households save a great deal of their earnings in China, while it is really easy to borrow money or spend on credit in America. In terms of national policy, China is much more focused on the supply side of the economy: It suppresses consumption as it favors manufacturers with preferential financing and all manner of policy support. The United States, meanwhile, is focused on regulating demand, for example, by imposing rent control in expensive cities or mailing out checks to consumers during the pandemic.
封城开始不久，欧文收到了一大袋政府发放的口粮：辣椒、西红柿、小白菜、大蒜、生姜、土豆等等。接下来的一周，又收到了一小袋。之后就杳无音讯。好几个星期，政府都没有再送来任何食物。欧文开始每天尝试预订送货上门，但始终未能成功。城里其他人也都在做着同样的事情，争抢着本就稀缺的食物。几天过去了，他心想：“情况可能不妙。”
Both approaches are running into problems. China won’t become the world’s biggest economy by building more tall bridges. It also can’t continue manufacturing more than twice the number of cars it sells at home. And the United States is starting to realize the problems of being too focused on the demand side of the economy. When the federal government offers, for example, rental support in housing-scarce cities, landlords can raise their prices, leaving renters no better off. When it increases financial aid for spiraling college tuition costs, universities are able to eat part of that by raising their tuition. Under banners like “abundance agenda,” “supply side progressivism,” and “progress studies,” various movements are trying to loosen American supply constraints. These are excellent ideas that I hope will be broadly adopted.
欧文把自己的微信账号写在一张纸条上，贴在门外。微信是中国最流行的聊天软件，一般人都会加入几十个群：家人群、同事群、其他学校的家长群、桌游群、大学同学群，以及任何需要组织活动的群。由于欧文住在最底层的住宅楼，就在商店楼上，所以每个人路过做新冠检测的时候都能看到他的微信账号。很快，整栋楼的人都加了他，他建了一个36户人的群聊。欧文并不想成为这栋楼的非官方代表。作为一个刚搬到上海的高个子蓝眼睛小伙子，他看起来不太像是这栋全是中国人的楼里最合适的发言人。“邻居们加我之后，”欧文告诉我，“他们的态度是‘兄弟，有什么计划？’”他成了与有关部门沟通的联络人，也是组织社区活动的领头人。
The economic partnership between the United States and China made many groups better off. But it also exacerbated the problems inherent in the economic systems in both countries. Overreliance on Chinese manufacturing accelerated US neglect of its supply side. Meanwhile, China hasn’t felt the need to wean off its dependence on exports because American consumers are always there to buy its goods. As these countries grow apart, they are going to have to do something difficult: The United States will have to regain all the muscle it has lost for building public works as well as manufacturing capacity, and China will have to empower consumers by getting over its fear of making people lazy.
在这个微信群里，邻居们能够互相帮助，即使是老年人也不例外（尽管他们可能由不住在一起的子女代表）。群里最重要的功能是组织团购，欧文通过直接从批发商那里批量订购食物来实现这一点。不知何故，食物配送竟然成了可能。这套系统在四月下旬缓解了饥饿问题，尽管它仍然存在很多问题。批量订购需要大家协调食物偏好；每个人都想要鸡蛋，但并非所有外国人都能说服他们的中国邻居黄油也必不可少。有一天，欧文突然很想吃面包，这对他的邻居来说是一种奢侈，他们肯定不会同意。他从城另一头的一位家庭面包师那里买了一些，每条40美元。
Doing these things won’t be easy for either country. Any time the Chinese economy wobbles, Beijing’s knee-jerk response is to announce another gigantic public works package. After a year of sluggish growth at the end of 2023, Beijing announced it would spend a cool one trillion renminbi (or $140 billion) on flood prevention and natural disaster resilience. Its instinct is still to keep building, as each of its Five-Year Plans reveal. Government ministries and state-owned enterprises are always formulating plans for the next rail extension, the next bridge, the next set of subway lines. Since the planning is already completed, a fresh infusion of funds can have a quick impact on growth, with spending on a new bridge making an impression on economic statistics immediately. Never mind that China has gotten less growth from each unit of new investment since its big infrastructure binge of 2008. The Communist Party continues to build because it’s full of engineers and also because Marxist-Leninists don’t want to cede economic agency to the people.
食物送到楼下后，由轮流的志愿者将食物分发到整栋楼里。一些住户同意禁止购买塑料桶装水，因为让邻居们费力地扛着它们爬楼梯很不公平。欧文只是偶尔会做这些志愿者工作，因为他白天还要在一家公共机构上班。这家公司简直就是个灾难。我的朋友们感觉自己得同时做两份全职工作：一份是他们原本的工作，另一份是每天花好几个小时去采购生活必需品。批量订购并非人人都能做到。一些小楼的住户人数不够，无法一次性订购成千上万个鸡蛋。而且，这套系统对老年人也不友好，他们很难操作手机购物。
China would be better off if it built less and built better. But we should also resist judging it by the standards of the United States, which is frankly underprovisioned in public infrastructure. Because there is perhaps one thing worse than an overactive state that can’t stop moving—and that is a state that can’t move at all.
尽管上海在整个四月份都处于严格的封城状态，但新增感染人数仍然持续上升。封城延期并不令人意外。大家都知道，只有当新增感染人数降至零时，封城才会结束。
When I look at the United States, I marvel both at how much it did build before 1970 as well as how little it constructed afterward. China spent 13.5 percent of its GDP on infrastructure investment in 2016, whereas the US average over the past three decades is closer to 3 percent each year. Could not the two countries just move a few percentage points closer to each other?
我问欧文，为什么封城期间还有那么多人感染病毒。“肯定是因为检测，”他回答说。人们几乎每天都要去做新冠病毒检测，有时一天两次。医疗队会进入公寓小区，通过微信或扩音器召集所有人下楼。任何没下来的人都会听到楼下大门的门铃声；如果门铃没响，就会有人敲门。老年人——其中一些人在疫情前很少出门——却要和邻居们挤在电梯里，这简直太荒谬了。
I wrote this book mostly out of my office at the Yale Law School. New Haven is well connected to New York City on the Metro North trains, which are comfortable and reliable but a bit slow. One day, I came across a Metro North timetable from 1915. It revealed that the express train from New York’s Grand Central Terminal to New Haven took the same amount of time then as in 2025: around two hours. The comparison isn’t totally fair because trains today make more stops than before. But I think it is reasonable for Connecticut residents to demand faster service than what was available a century ago. The entire American Northeast badly needs better train service. At present, its only high-speed train (the Acela) would be stripped of that label if it operated anywhere in Europe or Asia.
没有人能确切地说出自己是如何感染病毒的。或许奥密克戎病毒传染性极强，人们通过上海公寓楼里连接住户的管道或通风系统感染了病毒。或许它通过外卖传播。大多数人认为他们是在每日检测过程中感染的：在排队等候时被邻居传染。偶尔也会有这样的报道：负责采集咽拭子的医务人员本身就携带病毒，这至少污染了你的样本，并可能导致你被感染。尽管采取了严格的防控措施，新增确诊病例数在封城结束前的四周内仍然持续上升。
One might think that it’s not the end of the world for the United States to build gingerly and at extravagant cost; it is a rich country, after all. But slowness today risks global disaster. There is no way to achieve large-scale decarbonization without large-scale construction, of the sorts of solar, wind, and electrical transmission projects that China has been so good at.
许多人害怕病毒本身：两年来，中国政府竭尽所能地恐吓民众，让他们害怕感染病毒。新冠疫情爆发后，审查人员介入，确保没有人会把它说成“只是感冒”。一旦病毒检测呈阳性，生活就会变得复杂得多。中国政府不允许检测呈阳性的人待在家里。自2020年武汉疫情爆发初期以来，当局就意识到，病毒携带者不可避免地会将病毒传染给全家人，甚至可能传染给整栋楼。卫生部门会将感染者转移到大型集中隔离设施。待在这些地方并不好过。一位CNN制片人病毒检测呈阳性，她描述了在上海最大的会展中心（设有五万张床位）的生活状况。她描述说，那里灯火通明，广播里不断传来要求所有人早上六点前来接受核酸检测的通知，到处都弥漫着厕所或未洗衣物的臭味。
Though the Biden administration committed enormous funds to address climate change, the country moves far too slowly on building things. One cautionary tale: the story of Cape Wind, the United States’ first effort to develop offshore wind turbines. A developer tried to build turbines off the coast of Massachusetts, harnessing sea winds that are smoother and faster than those on land. Unfortunately, Cape Wind was in Nantucket Sound, home to some of the wealthiest, and mostly liberal, US citizens, like the Kennedy family, whose compound is in Hyannisport. These residents banded together, formed a nonprofit, and enlisted lawyers that included one of Harvard’s best-known constitutional law professors to challenge the development. After sixteen years of lawsuits, the developer abandoned the project.
将感染者送往隔离设施后，卫生部门会入户进行消毒。这意味着要用消毒剂彻底清洗所有东西——家具、书籍、电子产品、衣物，甚至钢琴。宠物主人面临着一个特殊的困境。他们可能会请邻居帮忙照看猫狗，而那些找不到人帮忙的人，只能痛苦地将宠物放生到街头，听天由命。要么就只能把宠物留在室内，想方设法提供足够的食物，以维持它们在主人隔离期间的生命。一段在网络上疯传的视频显示，一名大巴（dabai，马来西亚传统习俗中的一种称呼）用铲子 追赶一只柯基犬，直到它倒地不起，这段视频无疑加剧了人们的担忧。
Environmental reviews continue to delay renewable projects. In 2024, the United States had 42 megawatts of operational offshore wind production, 932 megawatts under construction, and an astounding 20,978 megawatts undergoing permitting review, most of which are waiting on environmental analyses to be completed. Meanwhile, China is building most of the world’s renewable energy. In 2023, while the United States added 6 gigawatts of new wind installations, China added 76. That year, China built two-thirds of the world’s wind and solar plants, as well as four times more than the rest of the G-7 group of rich countries put together.
有幼儿的父母更是惊恐万分。上海实行了一项政策，即使父母双方检测结果均为阳性，也要将婴儿与父母分开。婴儿被放在金属婴儿床里哭泣的照片在网上流传，惊慌失措的父母告诉媒体，他们已经好几天没有收到医院工作人员关于孩子情况的更新信息了。一位女士告诉记者，病毒本身已经不再让她感到害怕。“与亲人分离比病毒本身更让我恐惧。”其他任何事。”在网上引发强烈抗议后，该市放弃了隔离儿童的政策。
The lawyerly society is great at protecting the wealthy. The engineering state has a limited tolerance for how long infrastructure can be held up. It’s barely imaginable that a group of wealthy people would be able to use legal means to force the cancellation of clean energy projects in China. If it is really going to be a climate emergency, then the rest of the world will need to move as fast as the engineering state.
有一天，欧文感觉腹部下方有点疼。他低头一看，发现右大腿和腹股沟之间长了个拳头大小的肿块。上网查了一下，结果显示是疝气：欧文的一部分小肠突出出来，无法复位。这在男性中并不少见，不过通常是年纪大了才会出现。好在肿块并没有让他感到太疼。他至今也不确定肿块是怎么形成的。他告诉我，可能是因为打了个响亮的喷嚏，再加上长期久坐不动带来的压力，导致了这种情况。
Americans are starting to regain an awareness of the virtues of building. This political consciousness has budded in the political left, which has tended to favor physical stasis in the name of environmental protection or neighborhood preservation. Ezra Klein of the New York Times has pointed out that it’s hardest to build in the most Democratic-leaning locales: high-speed rail in California, the Second Avenue subway in New York, and housing in practically all big cities. In Abundance, Klein and Derek Thompson advocate to unblock constraints and achieve supply-side progressivism.
欧文决定不去就医。去医院几乎是不可能的。其中一个引发广泛愤慨的故事是上海一位49岁哮喘病护士的遭遇，她在工作的医院被拒绝治疗，最终晕倒身亡。患有疾病的人们担心自己的药物会断供：想办法弄到药可能又得花掉他们不少时间。我的一位同事告诉我，她患有糖尿病的叔叔在上海封城期间去世了，因为他无法接受透析治疗。人们感到震惊的是，除了新冠感染之外，医院几乎对其他所有疾病都置之不理。
Here is where socialism with Chinese characteristics can shine. Building big can sometimes unblock market power. People in Guizhou may not have much. But they do point to new bridges with pride, while using new roads and high-speed rail to get to markets and cities. Infrastructure that cannot recoup its revenue might upset bondholders and banks. But they represent subsidies to social benefits enjoyed by regular people.
上海封城期间，人们的经历各不相同。这座拥有两千五百万人口的城市所面临的情况也各不相同，从噩梦般的境遇到仅仅困难重重的处境，不一而足。并非所有人都挨饿：某些小区能够比较稳定地获得食物，尤其是有政府官员居住的小区。性格内向的人找到了在生活中建立秩序的方法。封城结束后，人们开始了解之前只在微信上交流的邻居。即使是那些觉得一切都可以忍受的人，也面临着一个挑战：没有人知道封城会持续多久。社区官员变得不愿与人沟通，主要是因为他们缺乏足够的信息。人们不知道封锁何时结束。疫情期间最令人不安的或许就是政府政策的频繁变动。除了排队做新冠检测之外，人们几乎不知道何时才能出门做其他事情，却不得不花大价钱购买邻居挑选的食物，努力保持理智和健康。
Has China already been practicing supply-side progressivism? No, because nothing about it is “progressive” in a way that someone on the American left would understand. China’s means of construction entail evicting people from their land, adopting a relatively lax approach to environmental protection and worker safety, and interpreting the public interest without substantial engagement with the actual people.
对许多人来说，除了整天盯着手机无所事事之外，别无他事。他们要么漫无目的地浏览娱乐内容，要么疯狂地尝试订购杂货。或者，他们会把时间花在社交媒体上。我们对上海封城期间的了解，很大程度上都来自微信、微博和其他平台上分享的视频。
China’s overbuilding has produced deep social, financial, and environmental costs. The United States has no need to emulate it uncritically. But the Chinese experience does offer political lessons for America. China has shown that financial constraints are less binding than they are cracked up to be. As John Maynard Keynes said, “Anything we can actually do we can afford.” For an infrastructure-starved place like the United States, construction can generate long-run gains from higher economic activity that eventually surpass the immediate construction costs. And the experience of building big in underserved places is a means of redistribution that makes locals happy while satisfying fiscal conservatives who are normally skeptical of welfare payments.
上海的大部分居民都至少经历过几次极度沮丧的时刻。夜间敲锣打鼓成为一种广为流传的抗议方式。一些视频显示，整栋楼的人们都在进行宣泄式的呐喊（这或许可以解释为什么政府会派出无人机命令人们停止“歌唱”）。有人拍摄了一段视频，视频中一名女子赤身裸体地在自家院子里徘徊。许多视频据称记录了人们从高楼跳下自杀后的场景。人们分享着其他人高声谴责警察或政权的视频。一对病毒检测呈阴性的夫妇拍摄了他们与一名坚持要将他们带到隔离点的警察对峙的视频。当他们出示阴性检测结果时，警察回答说：“我说你是阳性，你就是阳性。”
Rather than worry about bond vigilantes, the engineering state has focused on delivering material improvements for the people. Rural folks in Guizhou have seen their material conditions of life improve immeasurably over the past few decades. The mixture of permitting free enterprise while building big infrastructure is part of the reason that the Communist Party has held on to consent of the governed.
中国原本就十分强大的审查机制在此次危机中表现突出，应对挑战的反应令人震惊。投诉和抗议视频在网络上迅速传播后立即被删除。上海居民集体发布中国国歌第一句歌词“起来，不做奴隶的人们”时，他们的帖子也被删除。审查人员还删除了传播全国人大发言人关于隔离措施可能违法的言论的帖子。社交媒体平台一度屏蔽了搜索结果中的“上海”一词。
China’s policymakers have declined to be bound by some of the fundamental tenets of Wall Street investors—reduce investment, shrink assets, produce profitability—all of which emphasize efficiency. Perhaps it will trigger financial distress in the future. So far, however, building big has improved the lives of regular people, not just a narrow set of elites. This lack of emphasis on efficiency has been key to another Chinese success: Part of the reason that China dominates advanced manufacturing technologies is precisely because it tolerates lower profits while cultivating a large workforce.
一段视频成功突破了审查的封锁。有人（或一群人）将一系列音频片段按时间顺序剪辑成一段名为“四月之声”的视频。这段六分钟的视频包含了吴帆关于上海太重要而不能封城的言论；人们呼喊着要食物的声音；一位父亲恳求医生救治他生病的父亲；以及疲惫不堪的官员们表示他们无能为力的声音。“四月之声”连续几天占据了我的微信首页。人们为了绕过审查，不遗余力地分享这段视频，甚至将其上传到了区块链，使其得以永久保存。
Chapter 3 Tech Power
四月下旬，我的大多数外国朋友——尤其是那些有孩子的——都离开了中国，其中一些人就此永别。昂贵的机票对他们来说根本不算什么。为了离开公寓前往机场，人们必须签署保证书，承诺不再返回住所。平时30美元的出租车费，因为只有少数车辆和巴士获准接载乘客，价格飙升至300美元。
In 1980, Shenzhen was best known for its oysters. For centuries, it was populated by folks who made their living from the sea: pearl fishers, salt farmers, and oyster harvesters. Villagers set cages along the coast where shifting tidal waves brought saline water, warmed by the sun, to meet cool mountain streams, producing mollusks known throughout the region for being especially succulent. That was the past. For three decades, Shenzhen’s waters haven’t produced oysters, their habitat flushed away by industrialization.
上海新增感染病例在四月下旬达到高峰。五月份食品物流有所改善，摩根士丹利得以像其他美国银行一样，向部分客户赠送奢华礼物。我的一位朋友就收到过这样的包裹，里面有一份小龙虾沙拉，在当时看来，这简直是一种奢侈。6月1日，政府谨慎地允许上海逐步恢复正常。
Shenzhen was China’s greatest boomtown and, therefore, the world’s. Its population soared from three hundred thousand in 1980 to seven million in 2000 and eighteen million in 2020. For many Chinese, who are intently judged on the region they’re from, Shenzhen was a land of opportunity where no one was a local. One of the city’s slogans, still occasionally found on billboards, reads, “You’re a Shenzhen local the moment you’re here.” It’s a poke at Beijing and Shanghai, cities where older families maintain a certain exclusivity (as they might in Paris or London).
上海的封城是中国抗击疫情这一戏剧性事件历程中的一个重大转折点。在疫情持续的三年里，全国人民的情绪经历了从愤怒到自豪再到绝望的剧烈波动。
In 1980, when Deng Xiaoping christened Shenzhen a “special economic zone,” the city had little to recommend it other than its location directly abutting British-ruled Hong Kong. Deng wagered that success in Shenzhen could tear down the socialist strictures on China’s economy that the rest of the leadership had been hesitating to dismantle. He lavished the city with supportive policies and penned editorials to beckon the ambitious to move there.
第一幕发生在2020年初。当时我住在北京，眼看着这座城市随着武汉爆发的新冠病毒疫情而陷入恐慌。到了二月初，北京的街道空无一人，而武汉的街道则一片萧条。武汉医生李文亮的去世令我们感到无比愤慨。他曾试图警告人们注意一种新型呼吸道病毒，却遭到警方的训诫。2月7日，他因感染新冠病毒去世，而这正是他试图警告人们的。当晚，我的微信上充斥着对李医生的悼念，以及对警方对待他方式的强烈愤慨。直到两年后的“四月之声”，我的微信上才再次出现如此强烈的事件冲击。
Answering his call were rural folks, who had never enjoyed much economic opportunity, as well as urban residents frustrated by working for rigid state enterprises. These migrants became the shock troops of China’s foray into capitalism. They threw themselves into manufacturing toys, clothing, and other consumer goods in the 1980s, growing their capabilities each year. By the 2000s, Shenzhen was a major electronics hub. The workforce would become the spearhead for the greatest business endeavor of the early twentieth century: the campaign to put a smartphone into the hands of nearly everyone on the planet.
武汉官员出于极其微不足道的理由压制了有关新型病毒在市内传播的消息：他们想确保一年一度的政治会议顺利进行。在疫情爆发初期的关键时期，他们不愿听到任何异常消息，尤其是在农历新年即将到来之际。武汉官员拒绝取消一场吸引了十万人参加的社区盛宴，而这场盛宴距离当时已在华南海鲜市场传播的病毒爆发地仅六英里之遥。在农历新年晚会上，官方媒体还表扬了那些带病坚持演出的表演者。
When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in 2007, there was no more natural place than Shenzhen for mass production. It had already scaled up manufacturing of the iPod there a few years earlier. Apple decided that Shenzhen was the city to make the boldest product that Jobs had conceived.
2020年2月的北京，阴冷而灰暗。几乎所有餐馆和公共场所都关门了。我和朋友们骑着自行车穿梭在空荡荡的街道上。与此同时，武汉的惨状不断传来。我在北京听到的官方说法是英雄般的牺牲。一些官方媒体发布的画面确实鼓舞人心：当局直播了十几台挖掘机在11天内建成一座新医院的过程。但是，护士们为了防止病毒传播而被剃光头、哭泣的视频，却无法起到宣传作用。非官方的说法则更加令人心碎。一位住在离北京不远的42岁妇女讲述了她的故事。她从北京创作了一些简短的个人故事，并发布在社交媒体上：
The iPhone has become one of the rarest sorts of consumer products—both ubiquitous and coveted as a status object. It is also the crowning success of the trade relationship between two countries, in which American inspiration and marketing savvy met China’s millions of workers, managed by contract manufacturers like Taiwan’s Foxconn, to make state-of-the-art electronics. It wasn’t easy to organize a workforce to assemble thousands of components into the most complex consumer product the world has ever known. Mastering this feat propelled Apple to become the first trillion-dollar company.
夜深人静之时，有人跟在灵车后面，悲痛地呼喊着“妈妈”。
As China did so, it embraced a vision of technology radically different from Silicon Valley’s: the pursuit of physical and industrial technologies rather than virtual ones like social media or e-commerce platforms. In China, technology is not represented by shiny objects; rather, it is embodied by communities of engineering practice like Shenzhen, where technology lives inside the heads and in the hands of its workforce. This chapter reveals how a city climbed a technological ladder, making shirts and toys in the 1980s to making the world’s most sophisticated electronics three decades later.
全家去世后，一名 12 岁男孩独自去登记自己成为孤儿。
China, as I said in my introduction, is often messy. But in some places, it is spick-and-span. The most orderly places I’ve been to in the country are the manufacturing sites producing for Apple. Every worker is in place at all times. You can tell a worker’s rank by their uniform: A line manager might, for example, wear green among assembly workers wearing blue. Women and men with longer hair wear hairnets. Workers are not allowed to cross into assembly lines making products for other companies. At the end of the workday, they pass through perhaps a half dozen scanners to make sure they haven’t pocketed any products. A wave of people exit cafeterias or enter dormitories at designated times. Shuttles bring workers to the restaurants or karaoke spaces where they can, at last, be unregimented.
被当地警方强迫写了100遍“出门必须戴口罩”的人。
It’s easy to get lost in factory zones because so many of the buildings look the same. The iPhone turbocharged factory complexes to enormous scale: Foxconn’s manufacturing campus in the north of Shenzhen occupies five hundred acres. The site has factories, of course, and dormitories. It also has grocery stores, cafés, a fire brigade, a hospital, cinemas, swimming pools, and vendor-operated restaurants. The factory is the size of a city. The population peaks in early fall as production ramps up to meet demand for the Christmas season. Dormitories fill up then, with up to six men or women crammed into one room. Assembly lines operate for three eight-hour shifts a day; there is never a minute that factories aren’t producing iPhones. At the peak times, three hundred thousand people work at Foxconn’s Shenzhen campus, about as many as live in Pittsburgh or St. Louis. A Chinese report from 2009 estimated that the campus each day consumed forty tons of rice, twenty tons of pork, ten tons of flour, and five hundred barrels of cooking oil.
他背着母亲，四处寻找治疗方法，走了三个小时。
In 2020, Foxconn employed nearly a cool million workers globally. As iPhone production swung into full gear a decade ago in Shenzhen, workers might have seen someone zooming around the campus on a golf cart. That would be Terry Gou, founder of Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry). Gou might start the day by doing laps in the company pool and then drive his own golf cart, specially equipped with a bicycle bell, around the facility until late at night to monitor production. He is legendary in his native Taiwan for his dedication to work. Gou aggressively courted American companies like Dell and Apple to win contracts for manufacturing their products, earning their trust by guarding technical secrets and making products on time, at high quality, in massive volume.
一个从重病中康复的人回到家，却发现全家人都已去世，他们从屋顶上吊自杀了。
Terry Gou also has a whimsical side. In 2019, he said that the Buddhist goddess of the sea visited him in a dream to say that he should run for president of Taiwan. In his party’s primary election that year, he finished in second place.
China, if anything, gained something even greater from this partnership. While the company enjoyed a surge in valuation, the country experienced a boost in national power, produced by the international collaboration needed to train hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers, every year, to build sophisticated electronics. Chinese companies subsequently leveraged this workforce to lead the world in other industries centered in Shenzhen, including electric vehicles, battery systems, and consumer drones.
之后她停止了发帖。几个月后，她家乡的警方发布公告，认定她散布谣言罪名成立，判处她六个月监禁。
Gou set up the officially accredited Foxconn University on the Shenzhen campus, offering twenty-five majors, most of which were engineering related. Gou surrounded himself with deputies who worked nearly as relentlessly as he did, driving Foxconn executives to the factories six days a week and then to study sessions on Sundays. In earlier years, they studied engineering principles. One former employee told me that in more recent years, political education has been more prominent, meaning that they have to study the words of China’s top leader. The curriculum transitioned from “Steve Jobs thought” when Shenzhen was freewheeling a decade ago to “Xi Jinping thought” in the more disciplined present.
习近平宣布抗击新冠病毒是一场人民战争，这个源自毛泽东时代的词汇意在用游击战术粉碎帝国主义侵略者。政府集结了身强力壮的“大白”，让他们穿上不合身的白色制服，配备体温扫描仪，检查进入建筑物的人员是否发烧。此前宣扬社会主义优越性的鲜红宣传横幅被敦促民众待在家中的横幅所取代。政府竭尽全力阻止人员在全国范围内流动。铁路停运，阻止了数百万返乡过春节的农民工返回工作岗位。几乎所有国际航班也被叫停。少数入境人员大多是能够接受在隔离酒店居住长达三周的中国公民。
At the best of times, electronics assembly is overwhelmingly repetitive. Managers prize workers with daintier fingers, favoring women because they are presumed to be nimbler. When I asked factory overseers why iPhones are not made in the United States, they always bring up fingers. “Look at those meaty American hands,” Taiwanese managers tell me. “How can they possibly put together something as intricate as an iPhone?”
那年冬天，我感到困惑又愤怒。新冠肺炎是中国的第三例新冠疫情。三十年来，疫情爆发的模式与前两次如出一辙。上世纪90年代，河南省爆发艾滋病疫情，原因是血库重复使用针头，并将感染血液与健康血液混合；政府花了数年时间压制吹哨人，才最终正视这场缓慢蔓延的疫情。2003年，北京和广东的官员试图掩盖SARS疫情的消息，之后才果断采取行动控制疫情。
It’s hard to say what was more repetitive: studying Xi’s speeches or doing electronics assembly. Both are mind numbing, but assembly work caused greater suffering. We would know far less about Foxconn if over a dozen workers in Shenzhen had not attempted suicide by jumping from factory dormitories in 2010. This tragedy forced Foxconn and Apple into crisis management mode. The press-avoidant Gou invited a few Western journalists to tour sections of the campus, which was subsequently lined with three million square meters of mesh netting woven around dormitories to prevent more deaths.
在新冠病毒从武汉蔓延的一年前，中国最高疾控官员高以翔曾夸口说：“我很有信心，类似SARS的疫情不会再次发生，因为我国的传染病监测系统网络已经非常完善。” 高以翔说中国确实建立了一套技术上令人瞩目的疾病监测系统，这话没错。但他忽略了中国政治体制的弊端，地方官员阻止医务人员报告疫情。武汉官员甚至指示警方惩罚那些吹哨的医务人员。就这样，中国遭遇了迄今为止最严重的公共卫生危机。
As iPhone sales started to explode, Foxconn faced a constant hunger for workers. Soon enough, it had outgrown Shenzhen. Rather than wait for migrant workers to move to Shenzhen, Gou decided to move Foxconn to the biggest suppliers of workers. Factories sprang up in China’s most populous regions: Sichuan and Chongqing in the southwest, the eastern provinces around Shanghai, and the northern province of Henan. These regions remain major production sites for Apple, the biggest of which is in Henan’s capital city of Zhengzhou. At peak season, Zhengzhou has the capacity to employ around 350,000 people.
疫情的第二阶段始于2020年3月。专制政府压制负面消息的冲动酿成了灾难；随后，政府对日常生活实施的限制措施遏制了病毒的传播。当我们在北京的生活开始恢复正常时，新冠疫情已经席卷全球。尽管我们都对疫情的开端感到愤怒，但中国民众却眼睁睁地看着那些富裕得多的政府在应对疫情方面一团糟。否认病毒严重性的并非只有武汉和湖北的地方官员；鲜有全球领导人认真对待疫情。当这个技术型国家动用一切力量阻断病毒传播时，大多数其他国家的政府却几乎把新冠疫情当作一种只会影响中国人的奇闻异事。
Chinese officials climbed over each other to host a Foxconn facility. They salivated at the number of jobs and amount of tax revenues the company could create for their jurisdiction, which could elevate them to higher office. Local officials promised to satisfy Foxconn’s extraordinary labor demands. In Chengdu, minor bureaucrats had to hit quotas on the number of workers to rustle up for factory work; those who failed might receive an order to work at assembly lines themselves. One Chengdu official who failed her quota received not just that work assignment but also cruel teasing from her more successful colleagues: “Don’t leap off any buildings while you’re there,” someone told her.
在我的职业生涯中，我一直感到困惑，即使是金融市场也是如此。对中国大规模封锁几乎没有反应。二月份，我参加了彭博社的“Odd Lots”播客节目，与主持人特蕾西·阿洛威和乔·韦森塔尔讨论了这个问题，我们都感到有些困惑，为什么市场似乎不愿将全球疫情的影响反映到股价中。要么是这些过于理性的人认为北京的措施足以遏制病毒，要么是他们认为疫情不会对世界其他地区造成太大影响。但现实很快就摆在了我们面前。
Officials in Henan outdid themselves in hustling workers into factories. In 2016, Henan officials “borrowed” workers from state-owned coal companies to meet the iPhone production surge. In 2017, the Financial Times reported that up to three thousand high school students had to work on assembly lines—a few of them for eleven-hour days—and if they did not, their school withheld their graduation diplomas. They were euphemistically called “interns” who assembled iPhones for “vocational experience.” In 2022, when Covid controls snarled supply chains, they recruited retired People’s Liberation Army personnel to staff production lines. It was at Foxconn’s Henan sites where some of the most dramatic protests against zero-Covid took place, when young men flung bricks into massed ranks of riot police.
中国民众对武汉疫情掩盖的强烈愤怒，部分转化为对中央政府抗疫工作的自豪感。中国人目睹了意大利、俄罗斯和美国应对疫情的失误。他们震惊地看到特朗普竟然妄言病毒会自行消失，或者可以通过注射消毒剂来控制疫情。李文亮医生去世后，外国评论员纷纷用“切尔诺贝利时刻”来形容几十年来对共产党执政合法性的最大威胁。三个月后，习近平宣布中国“扭转了疫情的局面”。随后，当其他国家遭受新冠疫情的苦难日益加深时，《人民日报》宣称，疫情防控是中国社会主义政治制度优越性的体现。
Helen Wang (no relation) had been a Foxconn executive working in California in the early 2000s when Apple poached her to be a procurement leader. She would eventually work sourcing components for the first iPhone. In an interview, Helen told me that her first thought on receiving an assignment was often, “I need to build a city.” Construction of this scale was something that Apple, Foxconn, and government officials did together. Helen told me that Shenzhen conducted leveling operations along mountains to make land suitable for production. Another former Apple engineer told me that a grassy field had turned, four months later on his next visit from Cupertino, into an industrial building with six floors getting ready to install equipment. Local officials in Shenzhen, Sichuan, and Henan not only collaborated to find labor. They also offered cheap land, extended vast tax rebates, and built roads, dormitories, and factories. The central government pitched in to help too, creating “bonded zones,” which facilitated customs clearance. The state worked closely with the companies to move workers and components into factories and finished products out.
中国的疫情防控措施并非独一无二。日本、韩国和台湾也实施了封城、集中隔离、强制国际旅客入住隔离酒店，并要求所有人佩戴健康追踪应用程序。但中国执行这些管控措施更加严格，覆盖范围也更广，因为中国是一个工程技术型国家。
Deng Xiaoping, with the help of other reformist leaders, made Shenzhen into a hothouse of capitalism. What does capitalism need? A stock market, which Shenzhen established in 1990. What else? Belching factories with dismal labor conditions. That it had aplenty. Walmart invested deeply in that region to source goods: socks, toys, lighting, and nearly anything else that consumers wanted in a supercenter. In 2002, Walmart moved its global purchasing center from Hong Kong, a financial hub, to Shenzhen, which was closer to the factories. By that point, Shenzhen’s factories had started to produce goods more sophisticated than socks. They had become proficient at developing all sorts of electronics components: small batteries, cable connectors, and display screens.
只有由工程师统治的国家才会如此执着于追求某个数字。自疫情初期以来，中国官员就痴迷于两个数字：新增感染人数和病毒的传播率。这个工程型国家竭尽全力压制这些数据。最终，这导致了“清零”（在中国正式名称为“动态清零”）的推行。就像独生子女政策一样，目标再明确不过：数字就体现在名称中。也就像独生子女政策一样，“零新冠”政策充满了军事色彩：中国正在打一场抗击病毒的人民战争，而像武汉和上海这样的城市则是必须拿下的战场。
Explosive growth had costs: the oysters, for example, which could no longer live in the marine environments that the factories had spoiled. Walmart, Foxconn, and many other multinational companies have been accused of dreadful labor standards. Shenzhen built new buildings in too great haste. The government fretted about buildings that had “five lacks,” that is, no design, drawings, permits, supervised construction, or official registration. The result, reported by the Shenzhen Commercial Daily, was that one-eighth of rural buildings completed in 1983 suffered major structural problems, sometimes including collapse.
在习近平将共产党的威望押在控制疫情上之后，任何政策都显得荒谬可笑。“防控工作绝不能松懈，”习近平反复指示地方官员。一段时间内，清零疫情的代价似乎值得。然而，随着行动管制令的日益严苛以及政府对除新冠以外的任何疾病的漠视，这一策略最终沦为一场闹剧。官员们在执行清零疫情目标时过于死板，导致出现种种荒诞不经的局面。沿海城市厦门对刚捕捞上来的鱼进行口腔拭子检测。成都的一个熊猫研究基地对基地内的每一只熊猫都进行了检测。医务人员甚至追着藏族和蒙古族牧民——他们可能在草原上连续几天除了牦牛什么也没见过——去采集他们的口腔拭子。
I took frequent trips to Shenzhen when I lived in Hong Kong. You could get there via a sea ferry, which offered pleasant views, or, more conveniently, on the subway line that connects the two cities. Today, Shenzhen is one of China’s most desirable places to live, gleaming with skyscrapers and malls and full of big trees. But new construction has not obliterated the city’s past. Threaded between big avenues are bustling pockets of semi-preserved village structures that imbue the city with more liveliness than glass skyscrapers are able to provide. After business meetings, I would enter alleyways to find these urban villages, which have little textile workshops operating during the day and small joints serving griddles of seafood with fridges full of beer at night.
在疫情肆虐的三年里，中国建立了一套更为强大的国家机器，能够更好地利用数字监控来影响民众。独生子女政策的执行是一项极其严苛的行动，卫生工作者需要与弱势女性进行近距离接触。为了实现“清零”的目标，国家再次动员了数百万人：一支主要由男性组成的队伍，他们身穿白色防护服，成为“大白”，即疫情防控的公共执法人员；另一支主要由女性组成的队伍，担任接触者追踪员，调查人们在城市间和城市内的出行记录。
The center of Shenzhen is the Huaqiangbei mall complex. It is a giant bazaar spread across several buildings, with stalls filled not with spices or silks but wholesale electronics. Each storefront is usually made up of a brightly lit sign hanging above transparent plastic bins in which wires, specialized semiconductors, adapters, capacitors, and any electronic part imaginable can be scooped up by the armload. They buzz with the noise of activity. Clamor drifts up from the hubbub of people negotiating bulk orders, completed with the shriek that comes from ripping the packing tape that closes a box and seals the deal.
数字技术为国家工程部门提供了一种在执行独生子女政策时所不具备的工具。实施“零新冠”政策是一项技术密集型工程，它利用移动网络追踪人们的行踪，有时还会借助人脸识别技术。利用几乎人人携带的移动设备，可以实现各种技术和其他形式的数字监控。
On my first visit to Huaqiangbei, I walked through the hundreds of vendors in the mall complex, when a phone case with a whale printed on it caught my eye. I decided it would be fun to carry around a reminder of Moby-Dick. When I went to buy the phone case, the owner was slightly taken aback that I wanted only one. “Usually, we take orders by the hundreds.” It took him a moment to switch systems on his computer to accommodate my modest purchase.
有时，中国的数字平台会提供一些有用的界面，例如，地图服务可以帮助人们更轻松地找到附近的发热门诊。但有时，它们也被用来控制人员流动。在上海大学，学生必须出示手机上的二维码才能使用淋浴，这个二维码每两天会亮五个半小时。一位社会学专业的学生向上海一家报纸讲述了她的经历：“这感觉太奇怪了：我们所有的日常活动——吃什么、什么时候洗澡——都被纳入了政府的计划之中。” 政府试图减少整个社会的人员流动。由于中国大学校园本身就是相对封闭的区域，通常远离市区——而且大学生本来就应该把所有时间都花在学习上——官员们干脆决定将校园封锁起来。在封锁期间，学生们在宿舍里努力保持理智，因为宿舍里可能四个人挤在一个房间里。
Shenzhen and the surrounding cities (Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhuhai, and a half dozen others) altogether equal the population of Germany. The area is not without its charms. Hong Kong is breathtaking with its mix of mountains and skyscrapers, while Guangzhou has marvelous temples and big villas. It’s useful, however, to appreciate this region as a giant industrial complex, especially for making electronics. Drive out of downtown Shenzhen and that’s easy to see. Along dusty roads, you will find factories, warehouses, and tooling shops, which are rarely beautiful and mostly drab.
工厂工人有时会被隔离在一个“泡泡”里。这是北京为2022年冬奥会而发明的一种措施，目的是将外国运动员与普通民众进行物理隔离。一些公司试图通过提供四倍于平时的工资来吸引工人留在工厂——睡在装配线旁——从而建立类似的“泡泡”。例如，大众汽车和富士康就采用了这种“泡泡”模式，以确保汽车和iPhone的装配线正常运转。但问题是，即使是最坚韧的工人，几周后也会厌倦在装配线旁生活。而且，病毒往往还是会突破“泡泡”，感染所有人。
It’s fully appropriate to call Shenzhen the “Silicon Valley of hardware.” As in the stretch from Palo Alto to San Jose, Shenzhen is full of boring office parks along highways in a beautiful natural setting. And friends would tell me that Shenzhen, as in Silicon Valley, is a great place to found a start-up. A group of people would discuss an idea over dinner, divide up the tasks, and get to work the next morning. By contrast, in Beijing, dinner will feature interminable rounds of liquor shots, reckless bluffs about connections in high places, and uncertain follow-up afterward.
公共场所有时会突然封锁。上海迪士尼乐园就曾多次告知游客，由于确诊病例的密切接触者曾到访，他们不能离开这个“地球上最快乐的地方”。三万人2022年，游客们被困在迪士尼乐园里大半天，直到所有人的病毒检测结果都呈阴性后才得以离开。由于迪士尼乐园的游乐设施仍在运营，似乎并没有太多抱怨。这比上海九亭桥批发市场或松江建材市场的情况要好得多，这两个市场都曾将上千人封锁数日，不提供水和食物。在新冠疫情后期，每当有传言说某栋办公楼可能被封锁时，恐慌的白领们就会涌出上海或深圳的办公楼。究竟哪种情况更可怕，我们不得而知：是与同事被困在一起，还是无法洗澡。
It wasn’t simply Apple dreaming up new ideas for its manufacturers to execute. Rather, it was a collaborative process between Cupertino and Shenzhen. “[Apple products are] not designed and sent over. That sounds like there’s no interaction,” Apple CEO Tim Cook once told an interviewer. The idea of having something designed in California and manufactured elsewhere “requires a kind of hand-in-glove partnership.” In 2019, United Airlines made a promotional banner about how valuable Apple was to its business. United wrote that Apple booked fifty business-class seats daily from San Francisco to Shanghai, from which the airline made $35 million each year. That’s over eighteen thousand business-class seats on one route.
大城市试图对特定区域实施封锁，例如特定的公寓或办公楼。而其他地区的疫情封锁则更加不加区分，因为仅仅发现少数病例就可能导致整个城市封锁。小城市对医疗基础设施能否应对感染激增缺乏信心，因此地方官员更倾向于下令实施破坏性封锁。居住在中国边境城市（南部与缅甸和老挝接壤，北部与俄罗斯和朝鲜接壤）的人们受到的封锁最为频繁，因为人们经常穿越有时管控薄弱的国界。
The several dozen manufacturing sites that Apple has around the world are all meant to produce at exactly the same level of quality. That’s why Apple kept sending engineering managers from Cupertino and demanding they camp out in factories in Shenzhen or elsewhere in Asia and not come back until they had solved production issues. This demand for consistency helps to explain why the factories I visited felt so regimented: The production lines were intensely hierarchical, as extensively planned out as if they were military. It’s no wonder that Foxconn’s formal name is Hon Hai Precision Industry.
许多人接受了这些做法，因为他们听从了卫生部门的说法，认为这比感染和死亡要好；因为政府逐步加强了监管，并在过程中不断调整；或者因为他们别无选择。然而，当西安和上海的封城措施出现时，越来越多的人开始质疑，粮食短缺和无限期的居家隔离是否还值得追求“清零”。
A 2012 story in the New York Times reported that Apple needed to hire nearly nine thousand industrial engineers in the earlier days of iPhone production. The company’s analysts expected recruitment to last nine months to hire that many engineers in the United States. In China, they were able to do it in two weeks. A large pool of good labor increases the speed of design and production cycles. As Tim Cook once said, “In the US, you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields.”
第一阶段的“清零”以愤怒为特征，第二阶段以自豪和些许疲惫为特征。第三阶段始于上海封城之后，导致了绝望，并最终引发了大规模抗议。
Apple and Foxconn found an advantage in Shenzhen beyond workers who could meet their quality standards: The dense network of factories also offered flexibility on manufacturing techniques. One of the former Apple engineers I spoke to pointed out that any feature changes create unpredictable demands. Each year, Apple might have a pretty good sense of where most valuable iPhone components are coming from (the camera module, for example, from Sony; the memory from Samsung; its chips made by TSMC), but there are constant surprises further down the supply chain. “There are always new components or processes that a new design requires, like a certain type of adhesive or a screw of a slightly different size.”
在上海突然宣布封城一小时后，我和西尔维娅购买了飞往云南的机票。云南是中国西南部的山区省份，也是我的家乡。
Therefore, Apple constantly had to scramble to find suppliers on short notice. “Almost always,” the engineer continued, “we found someone in Shenzhen by asking a guy who knows a guy whose cousin might be able to produce a few hundred thousand new screws.”
我们俩都不相信上海的封城只会持续八天。更重要的是，我们俩都能远程办公。自从看到大白围攻堤岸大厦那天起，我们就一直在讨论是否要离开上海。封城令的宣布促使我们尽快安排行程。我和西尔维娅离开时，我们的航班是当天十几架没有被取消的航班之一。我们很幸运。由于上海是奥密克戎病毒爆发的中心，中国许多城市已经拒绝了来自上海的航班。
Virtually everything one needs to produce any electronic product can be found in a short drive around Shenzhen. Proximity creates efficiency. When it’s time to do stuff, a company can collapse coordination that usually takes weeks into a business meeting lasting hours by convening all the relevant suppliers in one room the next morning. And if something goes wrong, there are a lot of friendly neighboring factories to call. “If you have a gas leak,” an American hardware entrepreneur told me, “you can go borrow a neighbor’s kit and give it back the next day.”
原本以为两周的旅行，结果持续了近半年。云南是个适合反思的好地方，因为它可能是中国最自由的省份。在云南的群山之中，我不仅感受到了工程国家的理念，也感受到了法律社会的理念。在无法返回上海的这段时间里，我脑海中浮现出几个问题：中国是如何实施如此大规模的封锁的？为什么人们能够接受？习近平何时才会最终放弃这些管控措施？
Workers in Shenzhen gained skills by assembling smartphones, music players, and other electronics. It didn’t take long for some engineers and line managers to rummage around the plastic bins of Huaqiangbei, wondering what they could do with these parts. These components were getting better every year, part of a trend that Chris Anderson, former editor of Wired, called “the peace dividends of the smartphone wars.” The hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the smartphone supply chain have caused the cost of electronic components—cameras, sensors, batteries, modems—to plummet. That’s why we’re able to carry around sensors in our pockets that used to be available to only a select few military powers.
云南比邻近的贵州山峦更多，受中国繁荣的沿海地区工业转型的影响也更小。它仍然是中国较为贫困的地区之一，经济主要依靠旅游业和资源开采，特别是矿产和烟草。云南最北端是历史悠久的西藏，喜马拉雅山脉的一部分就坐落于此，其中包括藏传佛教最神圣的山峰之一——噶玛喀布峰。香格里拉是该地区最大的城市。藏传佛教寺院周围的小路上挂满了经幡，牦牛悠闲地走在路旁。而我从上海飞往的云南南部，那里的山脉……这里更加葱郁宁静。茶山和橡胶园绵延在湄公河之上，河水汇集了来自青藏高原的融雪，最终汇入越南南部。西双版纳是中国生物多样性最丰富的地区之一，拥有众多树木花草、野生大象、孔雀、熊以及各种各样的鸟类。
Many companies have grown around this peace dividend. Indeed, Shenzhen is the headquarters of many of China’s most dynamic companies, including BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle maker; DJI, the world’s largest consumer drone maker; and Huawei, the beleaguered company that is the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker. Electric vehicles are full of the electronic components borrowed from smartphones; the consumer drone is roughly a reassembly of a smartphone camera and sensor with propellers for flight.
中国官方认可的少数民族中，约有一半居住在云南。他们生活在雪山、雨林、梯田和湍急河流之间。历史上，许多少数民族都曾反抗汉族的统治。云南是东南亚广袤高原地区的一部分，许多学者将其称为“佐米亚”（Zomia），这里居住着无数山地民族，他们发展出一些反抗国家统治的习俗。詹姆斯·C·斯科特（James C. Scott）曾精辟地论述了佐米亚人如何“有意地成为野蛮人”，他们种植轮作的根茎作物（这些作物不易被税吏征收），并保留着口头文化（这使得他们的历史和民族认同更具可塑性）。因此，这些山地民族拥有各种自由也就不足为奇了，例如采摘野生蘑菇、狩猎野生动物或贩运毒品。即使是汉族国家也无法对这片茂密的丛林和崎岖的山脉行使管辖权。
The magic of Shenzhen is the combination of the world’s most creative hardware engineers sitting in a sea of components that improve every year amid a labor force of millions who know how to put together electronics. This buzzing ecosystem has produced many other products that follow in Apple’s wake, like hoverboards, electric scooters, virtual reality headsets, and who knows what’s next?
我和西尔维娅在大理待了几个月。大理一面是湖泊，一面是群山。当地的白族人建造了美丽的湖畔房屋，白墙之上饰以精美的木雕和蓝墨画。白族是山地农民，拥有悠久的手工艺文化，他们制作大理石器皿或靛蓝织物与汉族进行贸易。直到21世纪初，另一种白族特产吸引着外国游客：大麻，这种植物在当地自由生长。身在北京或上海的外国人或许还会怀念大理的旧时光，那时，一位面带微笑的老妇人会招呼你走进一条小巷，兜售一小袋大麻。
When I moved to China in 2017 to cover technology, it was still common to hear Americans say that Chinese companies couldn’t innovate. China could only copy and steal, they said. Some folks in Silicon Valley knew that there were cool things cooking in Shenzhen, but the broader attitude among Americans was condescension.
凭借其湖泊、自然风光和阳光明媚的天气，这座城市赢得了“达利福尼亚”的美誉。在我继续远程工作期间，西尔维娅她当时正在进行民族志田野调查。她向我介绍了一些当地的年轻人，他们正在探索自己对农业或虚拟技术的兴趣。这座城市吸引了形形色色的人：中国蓬勃发展的有机运动，其成员大多是希望利用大理肥沃土壤的年轻人；带着孩子来体验以自然为中心的教育项目的妈妈们，她们希望孩子们能从上海和深圳竞争激烈的学校生活中得到放松；还有一些外国人，他们最初是为了大麻而来，后来却被这里慢节奏的生活所吸引，开设了酸面包店、咖啡馆和电子音乐俱乐部。如今，中国和外国的年轻人来大理不再是为了大麻，而是为了更刺激的东西：加密货币、NFT 和其他 Web3 相关产品。
When I left China in 2023, the tenor of American views had shifted. Fewer people were saying China hasn’t developed any important technologies, since it has become a major producer of electric vehicles and clean technologies. Alarm has crowded out the dismissiveness, as China’s surveillance capabilities are menacing US national security while its manufacturing capacity is threatening to engulf Western firms.
中国加密货币社区的许多人已经迁往加利福尼亚州，吸引他们的不仅是那里优美的自然环境，还有相对宽松的社会氛围。正如斯科特所写，群山一直吸引着异见者、叛逆者和颠覆分子。不仅空气在高海拔地区变得稀薄，国家的触角也随之收窄。一些厌倦了税收管理或其他弊端的民众选择攀登到高处。因此，无论是阿巴拉契亚地区的美国人、苏格兰高地居民，还是云南和佐米亚其他地区的少数民族，山民往往被视为桀骜不驯之辈。对政府管理和工业发展而言的困难，往往对个人自由而言却是有利的。云南的群山保护了当地人民免受大跃进时期国家制造的饥荒和文化大革命时期红卫兵的迫害。
We are still not appreciating the communities of engineering practice like Shenzhen, and at no point has there been real curiosity about how China’s technological capabilities have developed.
这就是为什么云南可能是中国最自由的地区。它远离国家核心区域，而且与新疆或西藏不同，国家对少数民族的管控并不严格。云南可能成为毒品走私、加密货币交易的聚集地，也可能出现近年来最激进的现象：新冠疫情管控宽松。地方政府偶尔会关闭一些市场。尽管疫情初期几乎没有新增病例，但当局却并未采取像武汉、西安和上海那样严格的封锁措施。当时居住在封闭式小区的居民太少，封锁措施难以奏效。如果当局管控过于严苛，白族村寨的村民可能就会直接从自家后院逃到山里去。
The iPhone embodies China’s steady technological ascension. In 2007, Apple imported nearly all of the high-valued components—display screen glass from the United States, camera modules from Japan, memory chips from South Korea, sensors from Germany—to Shenzhen. China’s contribution consisted mostly of the labor involved in assembling foreign products, which was around 4 percent of the phone’s final value. One former Apple executive told me that the iPhone supply chain grew more “red” over the next decade as it incorporated domestically produced components—meaning that it incorporated more Chinese components. By the time that the iPhone X was released in 2017, Chinese firms were making acoustic parts, charging modules, and battery packs. According to a teardown analysis, China’s contribution to the iPhone X reached around 25 percent of the final value of the phone.
我在云南山区领悟到了“工程国家”的概念。在上海，政府能够像操控棋子一样操控民众，让他们自由行动（或被限制行动），而在更偏远的地区却无法做到这一点。同时，我也隐约看到了“律师社会”的雏形。封城期间，一篇广为流传的文章出自上海宪法学教授童志伟之手，他指出上海的封城措施缺乏法律依据。政府对童志伟的法律论证的回应是审查他的文章并删除他的社交媒体账号。让两千五百万人居家隔离一段时间，缺乏法律依据又有什么关系呢？祝那些试图去法院提起诉讼的人好运吧。
In the 2010s, China produced the digital platforms that Americans have associated with real technological innovation. In 2017, tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent brawled with each other, as well as with up-and-coming firms like ByteDance, for the billion Chinese users who were getting online. E-commerce companies like Alibaba held ludicrously fun sale bonanzas, hiring Taylor Swift to perform a concert in Shanghai to drive a buying frenzy. Chinese consumers were some of the most eager adopters of online retail in the world; since they live in dense cities with superb logistics networks, platforms were able to deliver goods rapidly. People skipped several steps in Western habits, dispensing with personal computers, email, and credit cards so that they could manage their lives on their smartphones, especially through Tencent’s WeChat app. In 2017, TikTok was gaining traction, and China looked like it might be strong on AI and maybe dominate Bitcoin too, given that most of the world’s mining servers were there.
很难称赞美国应对新冠疫情的措施。回首往事，整个过程显得一团糟，各州政策不一，而唐纳德·特朗普混乱的管理更是雪上加霜。美国民众跌跌撞撞地学会了与病毒共存，很大程度上是因为政府的无能。但美国（在特朗普的“曲速行动”下）研制出了中国未能研制出的mRNA疫苗。而现在看来，中国应对新冠疫情的措施同样显得混乱不堪。这个工程技术发达的国家竭尽全力地想要保住之前取得的成就，直到最终被迫放弃一切。
A few years later Xi Jinping kneecapped most of China’s digital platforms. Xi prefers his industry heavy and his output hard. He scorned the virtual economy, denouncing the “barbaric growth” of capital and focusing instead on industrial developments. That meant throwing everything into manufacturing. Though it remains several steps behind the West in a few critical industries, especially semiconductors and aviation, Chinese manufacturing has caught up in most other fields.
上海封城之后，越来越明显的是，只要能阻止疫情蔓延，习近平会毫不犹豫地摧毁任何行业，国家也不会在意任何个人的苦难。企业对未来投资深感不安，地方政府捉襟见肘，这些都无关紧要。政府把所有资金都花在了检测上，民众也因此精疲力竭。2020年，意大利哲学家乔治·阿甘本写道，意大利的疫情控制措施如同“卫生恐怖”和“必须不惜一切代价履行的法律宗教义务”，此言一出便招致批评。在我看来，他的这番话更能有力地反驳政府对“清零”新冠疫情的执着。中国民众愤怒地发现，医疗系统竟然无视糖尿病、癌症和其他危及生命的疾病造成的死亡人数，他们的整个生活都必须服从于这个目标数字。
China leads the world in deploying ultrahigh-voltage transmission lines, high-speed rail, and 5G networks. Chinese manufacturers make machine tools—die-casting machines, steel presses, robotic arms—that approach German and Japanese levels of quality. They’ve muscled out most other Asian competitors on consumer electronics. Phone makers like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi tapped into the worker and component ecosystem that Apple helped to build. In 2025, the world’s largest phone makers are Apple, Samsung, and a half dozen Chinese firms that concentrate on sales to developing countries.
云南和中原其他地区的山地民族曾多次发动反抗政府管制的起义。因此，我不禁纳闷，为什么上海的封城措施没有引起更多人的抗议。美国零星的封城措施，即便以欧洲国家的标准来看也算温和，却在2020年夏天引发了大规模骚乱。上海民众与警察之间偶尔也发生过冲突，但并未出现大规模的叛乱。尽管中国的国内安全预算高于军费预算，但政府甚至无需动用武警等更强大的力量来执行封城措施。普通警察就足以应对。
Chinese brands are not only making many of the lowest-end consumer goods (the junk found on e-commerce apps) but also higher-end kitchen products and audio equipment. It’s fair to say, however, that although Chinese workers make so much stuff, few Chinese companies have established striking global brands. They’re far behind Japanese companies, which, starting in the 1970s, created whole new categories of products, like music players, game consoles, digital cameras, and pocket calculators, that excited global consumers. For the most part, Chinese successes involve making good products cheaply. But I think it’s likely that they will be known for great products too. Branding tends to follow good quality, and I expect Chinese brands to be well regarded over the next decade, just as the perception of “Made in Japan” flipped from shoddy to valuable.
一位上海朋友让我体会到了警方策略的微妙之处。他住在法租界一个有很多外籍居民的小区里，和欧文一样，成了这栋楼的非官方代表之一。封城期间的一天，几个邻居为了发泄不满，推倒了路障。事后，警方调取了监控录像，确认了所有肇事者，并将他们带回警局进行了长达数小时的审讯。我的朋友告诉我，警方很少问开放式问题，而是会问：“确认你踢了路障多少次”，然后写下供词并要求他们签字。他们没有采取任何惩罚措施。这些声明像阴云一样笼罩着居民。一对惊恐万分的法国夫妇签署了声明后，最终永远离开了这个国家。
China’s clearest industrial success involves clean technology, or the renewable power equipment that we need to decarbonize our economies. In 2025, Chinese firms dominate every segment of the solar value chain, make most of the large-capacity batteries that power electric vehicles, and have commanding positions in wind turbines and hydrogen electrolyzers.
我问过几个朋友，为什么上海人没有抗议。他们也有同样的疑问。他们认为主要原因是，大多数中国人确实害怕感染病毒。他们听了太多政府关于病毒传染性极强的报告，却很少听到西方评论员淡化疫情严重性的报道。中国卫生部门采取了循序渐进的防控措施，因此“清零”策略直到后来才显得突兀。而且，谁也没想到封城会持续这么久。如果人们知道封城会持续八周，他们或许会更早抗议，但上海最初宣布的八天“暂停”措施阻止了更激烈的行动。
China remains weak in several industries, however. The leadership is sore that the country remains dependent on the West for aircraft engines and semiconductor technologies. And though China’s biotech industry is big, Chinese pharmaceuticals haven’t yet produced a blockbuster new drug or vaccine. Not often do its universities generate groundbreaking new papers that force American scientists to sit up and pay attention.
但经历了长达八周的封城之后，上海的气氛十分紧张。没有人知道习近平打算如何结束“清零”疫情：难道大家最终不会都感染病毒吗？而国产疫苗的效力可能还不如美国政府提供的疫苗。上海在六月解封后加强了出行限制，并宣布这些措施是为了防止再次封城。一段时间内，人们也接受了这些限制。
The fact is that China remains fairly weak at producing scientific advancements. Whereas Japanese researchers have earned more than twenty Nobel Prizes in the sciences, only one has ever been awarded to a Chinese national. Now the state is dedicating enormous resources to pursuing better science. In 2019, China became the first country to land a rover on the far side of the moon; a year later, Chinese scientists achieved quantum-encrypted communication by satellite. Its space agency has announced that it will land people on the moon by 2030. That’s hardly outdoing the United States in space, which landed astronauts on the moon six decades before China’s target. But it is a sign that China is steadily investing in scientific capabilities that give it the power to achieve increasingly difficult tasks.
我当时只是太着急了。2022年秋天，全国各地都爆发了抗议活动。在上海，抗议活动演变成了激烈的政治斗争。我永远不会忘记，我亲眼目睹了在中国最富裕、人口最多的城市里发生的公开反政府示威游行。
It’s another of the ways that the United States and China are inversions of each other. Americans expect innovations from scientists working at NASA, in universities, or in research labs. They celebrate the moment of invention: the first solar cell, the first personal computer, first in flight. In China, on the other hand, tech innovation emerges from the factory floor, when a new product is scaled up into mass production. At the heart of China’s ascendancy in advanced technology is its spectacular capacity for learning by doing and consistently improving things.
夏末时分，我和西尔维娅离开了云南。回到上海后，这座城市仍然笼罩在疫情封锁带来的创伤之中，气氛紧张。
When we talk about technology, we should really distinguish between three things. First, technology means tools. These are the pots, pans, knives, and ovens required to prepare a dish. Second, technology means explicit instruction. These are the recipes, the blueprints, the patents that can be written down. Third and most important, technology is process knowledge. That is the proficiency gained from practical experience, which isn’t easily communicated. Ask someone who has never cooked before to do something as simple as fry an egg. Give him a beautiful kitchen and the most exquisitely detailed recipe, and he might still make a mess.
该市的限制措施执行得比以前更加严格。我必须出示健康码才能进入公共场所——地铁、餐厅、便利店等等。过去72小时内的PCR检测结果为阴性。市政府在许多街角都设立了检测亭，但人们很容易忘记及时进行新冠检测，导致无法与朋友在餐厅或咖啡馆见面。有一天，我疏忽了。当我站在人行道上，试图从窗口点一杯咖啡时，却遭遇了被拒绝的荒谬经历。当我表现出愤怒时，咖啡师耸了耸肩，转身走开了。
We can see how China values process knowledge through its approach to architecture too. That reveals something deeper and more interesting about its culture. One of my favorite books about China is a collection of essays called The Hall of Uselessness by the Belgian sinologist Simon Leys. In one of these essays, “The Chinese Attitude Towards the Past,” Leys considers the construction techniques of Chinese builders.
部分原因是由于采取了更严格的措施，上海在秋季并未出现病例激增的情况。然而，奥密克戎病毒却在全国其他城市蔓延。
Builders everywhere have attempted to overcome the erosion of time. Ancient Egypt and medieval Europe built great pyramids and cathedrals out of stone. The approach in China, as Leys points out, is for builders to yield to the onrush of time by using eminently perishable, and indeed fragile, materials. By building temples out of wood with paneling sometimes made of paper, Chinese architecture has built-in obsolescence, demanding frequent renewal. “Eternity should not inhabit the building,” Leys writes. “It should inhabit the builder.” Rather than using the strongest materials, Chinese builders have embraced transience to ensure the eternity of spiritual designs.
2022年9月，四川发生地震。成都市居民惊慌失措地涌向避难所，但防疫人员却阻止部分居民离开，将他们困在摇晃的建筑物内。一辆载着前往隔离点的巴士在贵州山区翻车，造成27人死亡。新疆首府乌鲁木齐发生火灾，消防车被防疫路障阻挡，无法灭火，导致10人死亡。所有这些事件都在中国媒体上得到了广泛报道。2022年国际足联世界杯也同样如此，数百万热爱足球的中国人观看了多哈体育场内人山人海的欢呼声。两年前，他们还对世界其他国家应对疫情的方式嗤之以鼻。如今，中国人却羡慕不已，不禁疑惑：新冠病毒真的比火灾和地震更危险吗？
The shining exemplar of this idea is found not in China but at the Ise Grand Shrine (or Ise Jingu) in Japan. Ise Jingu is the holiest shrine in Japan’s Shinto faith. Since it was first erected in 690 AD, craftspeople have completely rebuilt its sacred temples—made of wood and hay—every twenty years. In 2033, the temple will be rebuilt for its sixty-third reconsecration. Ise Jingu’s halls are made of Japanese cypress timbers that support a raised floor and are covered by a thatched roof of dried silvergrass. These structures use techniques from the seventh century: no nails, only dowels and wood joints. Though wood joinery is a complex craft, the rest of the construction is simple.
习近平不希望2022年出现任何差错。在当年10月的党代会上，他即将宣布自己连任第三届。如果新冠疫情在中国爆发，将会扰乱他的政治计划，引发令领导层在任何时候都感到恐惧的动荡，尤其是在每五年召开一次的党代会之前。习近平越来越执着于营造一个稳定的政治环境。
Why does this ritual persist? In part, it has to do with the Shinto faith in spiritual renewal. And it is also because these shrines are built in the style of rice warehouses, dedicated as they are to the god of agriculture, which rot every few decades. It is also about the preservation of craft knowledge. Twenty years is the length of a generation, and the caretakers of the Ise Jingu have attempted to ensure that knowledge about how to rebuild this shrine can be passed on to descendants. Junko Edahiro, an environmental writer who witnessed the sixty-second rebuilding, heard an elderly fellow say to younger folks, “I will leave these duties to you next time.”
2022年5月，上海仍处于封城状态，政治局宣布，中国的“清零”政策“经得起历史考验……正如我们赢得了保卫武汉的伟大战役一样，我们也一定能在上海取得胜利。”该声明对任何质疑者都带有强烈的警告意味，承诺“坚决打击任何歪曲、质疑、否定我国新冠疫情防控政策的言论”。9月，公安部网络监察局发布指令，要求宣传部门只发布经批准的信息，并“停止散播负能量！”
Edahiro wrote a piece entitled “Rebuilding Every 20 Years Renders Sanctuaries Eternal.” Shrine staff make plans measured in centuries: They have a two-hundred-year road map to plant enough cypress trees to make the nearby shrine forest self-sufficient, rather than having to ship timber in from other parts of Japan. Their planning and the ritual make me wonder how much process knowledge the West has given up. When a fire broke out on the roof of Notre Dame de Paris in 2019, it revealed how little knowledge about cathedral construction is left in the world. I would bet that Ise Jingu, built out of wood, will endure longer than the great pyramids and cathedrals made of stone.
10月底，随着中国各大城市加强疫情管控，习近平成功连任第三届总理。但经过两年多的管控收紧和悲剧发生，民众早已怒不可遏。
Embracing process knowledge means looking to people to embody eternity rather than to grand monuments. Furthermore, instead of viewing “technology” as a series of cool objects, we should look at it as a living practice. That is closer to the approach used in China and Japan.
河南富士康工厂爆发抗议活动，并演变为暴力冲突。电子产品组装工作本身就十分繁重且重复，对于数千名生产iPhone的流水线工人来说，压力更是难以承受。目前尚不清楚究竟是什么引发了这场骚乱——是拖欠工资、工厂泡沫破裂，还是病毒传播——但它确实将年轻人推上了街头。视频显示，工人们与大批防暴警察对峙，其中一些警察身穿大白制服，工人们向身着白色制服的警察投掷砖块、栅栏碎片和石块。而警察则被迫撤退。
If Japanese craftspeople have put in this much work to retain knowledge of a seventh-century temple, how are we supposed to maintain the vast technological civilization we’ve built? This wooden structure is so much simpler than a modern auto plant, to say nothing of a semiconductor fab. Can we moderns preserve manufacturing knowledge without enacting the rituals of craftspeople?
其他地方的抗议活动也演变成了政治事件。重庆一名男子因高喊美国独立战争口号“不自由，毋宁死！”而走红网络。起初，旁观者保护他免受警察伤害，但最终当局还是将他塞进了警车。在法租界的酒吧区，人们高喊的口号对政权更具威胁性。11月的一天，人们在乌鲁木齐路举行守夜活动，这条路位于上海酒吧区的中心地带，许多外国人居住于此。这条路恰好以乌鲁木齐命名，而乌鲁木齐曾发生过一场造成十人死亡的大火。这原本并非一场大型活动，但当一些醉醺醺的年轻人摇摇晃晃地走出酒吧，加入到悼念队伍中时，活动逐渐升温。
The answer, perhaps, is that we can’t. It’s not just Boeing and Intel that have lost their way. In the time it took to do one rebuild of the Ise Jingu, the US government forgot something only as important as nuclear weapon material. The National Nuclear Security Administration found that it could no longer produce “Fogbank,” a classified material used to detonate the bomb, because it hadn’t kept good records of the production process and everyone who knew how to produce it had retired. The NNSA then spent $69 million to relearn how to produce this material.
午夜过后不久，原本平静的守夜活动开始变得热闹起来。抗议活动随即爆发。年轻人开始高喊口号，表达他们的不满，尽管警察已经将他们包围，但警察并没有阻止他们的口号：“打倒共产党！习近平下台！”
It’s rare for blueprints to encode enough information to be technologically valuable. Imagine if we were able to send the most detailed instructions for building any modern technology back to the past. The lead chariot engineer of a Roman caesar would get nowhere with the most detailed manual and finely drawn blueprints on how to produce a Model T. Nor would many of us in the present be able to do much if we got our hands on the instructions for producing an Intel processor or ASML lithography machine. I am not proud to have struggled with putting together a footrest from IKEA.
这是一场即兴抗议，正因为它从未被组织过。那天晚上我已经睡着了。第二天，我从家往西走了二十分钟，来到乌鲁木齐路。那里聚集了大量警察，还有许多人在附近徘徊。巧合的是，我碰到了我的朋友欧文。空气中弥漫着紧张和兴奋的气氛。当一辆车驶过时，车里大声播放着中国国歌，我们都竖起了耳朵，想看看警察会有什么动作。我们看到一名警察拖走了一名BBC记者。晚上，警察果断地开始清空乌鲁木齐路。我们看到他们慢慢地驱散人群，直到他们在整条街上都竖起了高高的路障，几乎堵死了所有的人行道。
Process knowledge is hard to measure because it exists mostly in people’s heads and the pattern of their relationships to other technical workers. We tend to refer to these intangibles as know-how, institutional memory, or tacit knowledge. They are embodied by an experienced workforce like Shenzhen’s. There, someone might work at an iPhone plant one year, for a rival phone maker the next, and then start a drone company. If an engineer in Shenzhen has an idea for a new product, it’s easy to tap into an eager network of investors. Shenzhen is a community of engineering practice where factory owners, skilled engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers mix with the world’s most experienced workforce at producing high-end electronics.
随后发生了一起更具个人色彩的抗议活动。一天早上，一名男子装扮成建筑工人，在北京一座繁忙的高速公路桥上悬挂了两条横幅。之后，他焚烧了一个轮胎，制造烟雾，以吸引人们关注他的诉求。第一条横幅的内容大致翻译如下：
Silicon Valley used to be like this too, but now it lacks a critical link in the chain—the manufacturing workforce. The value of these communities of engineering practice is greater than any single company or engineer. Rather, they have to be understood as ecosystems of technology.
考试结束了，我们得吃饭了；
The United States does want to re-create Shenzhen’s success. But it has had, at best, a surface-level understanding of its success. Silvia Lindtner, a professor at the University of Michigan and my wife, has spent more than a decade studying Shenzhen’s technology ecosystems. In 2015, the Austrian government asked her how to create a Shenzhen in the Alps; in 2016, the White House invited her to present on how the United States might learn from the success of Shenzhen. She has felt, as I do, that these agencies misunderstood the point of Shenzhen. They were still more interested in individual inventors rather than understanding it as a community of engineering practice. The obsession with invention has clouded Silicon Valley’s ability to appreciate China’s actual strength. Rather than seeing tools and blueprints as the ultimate ends of technological progress, I believe we should view them as milestones in the training of better scientists and manufacturers. Viewing technology as people and process knowledge isn’t only more accurate; it also empowers our sense of agency to control the technologies we are producing.
停止宵禁，我们想要自由；
Viewing technology as people also helps us understand why economic relations between the United States and China have broken down. Through the 1990s and especially after 2001 (when China acceded to the World Trade Organization), American companies were busy moving manufacturing work to China. Apple’s collaboration in Shenzhen helped transform the city into the world’s most innovative hub for electronics production. But this win for Apple’s shareholders has been a loss for American power.
够了，谎言不能再说了，我们要的是尊严；
US manufacturing employment peaked in 1980 at nineteen million workers. In 2000, it still had seventeen million. Then it collapsed over the next decade, in part due to China, in part due to technology changes, and especially after the global financial crisis, when the workforce fell to just eleven million in 2010. In 2025, the United States has around thirteen million manufacturing workers.
拒绝文化大革命！
At times, American elites have been strangely good humored about the departure of manufacturing jobs. In 1993, the chief economic adviser to George H. W. Bush, Michael Boskin, quipped, “Computer chips, potato chips, what’s the difference?” It became part of the elite consensus that the United States could lose manufacturing. This consensus portrayed union bosses, as well as the handful of heterodox economists, as sentimentalists for resisting offshoring. Neither the Clinton nor George W. Bush administration restrained American firms from moving manufacturing operations to China. Now, it’s more obvious that the departure of manufacturing has created economic and political ruination for the United States. We are still only beginning to understand how much it set the country back technologically.
改革开放是解决之道；
Many of the United States’ most storied companies have been ailing. Detroit’s automakers, having limped along for decades, are now stumbling through the transition to electric vehicles. US Steel, General Electric, and IBM are shadows of their past selves. Intel, mired in cycles of blown product timelines and layoffs, went from a semiconductor trailblazer to a clear laggard behind Taiwan’s TSMC. After two of Boeing’s 737 MAX jets crashed in 2017, the company promised strenuous efforts to guarantee the safety of its aircraft. Then a door blew off midair in 2024. Boeing, like Intel, is constantly delaying the launch of long-planned products.
我们不需要一位伟大的领袖，只需要一场自由的选举；
Even the military-industrial complex looks challenged. The United States spends nearly $1 trillion a year on defense, about as much as the next ten countries combined. The return on this investment is not clear. In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine blew through several years’ worth of American munitions stockpiles in a matter of months, and American factories have struggled to scale up production. Fighter jets have faced enormous delays and cost overruns. The US Navy has reported that every single class of its ships and submarines is one to three years behind schedule.
我们是公民，不是奴隶。
American manufacturers aren’t all languishing. Tesla is America’s great hope in automaking. There remain many leaders across semiconductor production equipment makers, medical devices, and agricultural equipment. The great success of the US manufacturing sector over the past several years was the production of mRNA vaccines, which have saved lives around the world. But the triumphs in medicine and pharmaceuticals were not matched by the broader set of American manufacturers, who failed to produce basics like masks and cotton swabs.
The American imagination has been too focused on the creation of tooling and blueprints. Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel, said it best in 2010: that the United States needs to focus less on “the mythical moment of creation” and more on the “scaling up” of products. Grove saw Silicon Valley transition from doing both invention and production to specializing only in the former. And he understood quite well that technology ecosystems would rust if the research and development no longer had a learning loop from the production process.
第二条横幅上写着：“清除国家叛徒习近平”。
The US manufacturing base has, with some exceptions, rusted from top to bottom. Why have so many manufacturers crumbled? Partly, I think, we can examine the culture of financial investors. Wall Street has been far keener to invest in capital-light businesses: digital platforms like social media and search engines or chip companies that focus on design rather than cumbersome fabrication facilities. If it weren’t for Tesla (which makes many of its cars in Shanghai), the United States would be even further behind China in electric vehicles. And Tesla’s survival was a close-run thing. In 2018, Elon Musk said that Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy as it tried to ramp up the production of the ultimately successful Model 3. It was a time he called “excruciating.” In retrospect, it is an indictment of the American financial system that fundraising for a manufacturing leader had to be this difficult. Financialization also intersects with corporate consolidation. One prominent line of argument regarding General Electric was that the company was taken over by finance. That applies in greater force against Boeing. Once run by engineers obsessed with safety and quality, its leadership shifted to executives more focused on delivering shareholder value than good planes.
警方赶到现场逮捕了他并取下横幅，但这些口号已经开始在社交媒体上传播。抗议者的身份尚未得到证实。可以肯定的是，他正在付出代价。悬挂横幅付出了惨痛的代价。审查人员已将这座高速公路桥从中国的地图服务中删除。如果你输入“四通桥”，地图服务会显示没有结果。
Mostly, though, I think the problem lies with American policymakers and executives who fail to grasp the importance of process knowledge.
一些青年抗议者也遭受了苦难。11月底，年轻人聚集在上海、北京和其他一些城市，有时举着一张空白的A4打印纸。携带白纸成为象征中国审查制度的一种方式。这恰好呼应了之前的象征意义：白色代表着疫情管控措施的执行，从大白们身穿防护服的形象，到年轻人将其挪用为抗议的象征。后来，中国的反新冠示威活动被统称为“白纸抗议”。
American manufacturers spent the better part of three decades unwinding its stock of process knowledge when it opened so many factories in China. Every US factory closure represents a likely permanent loss of production skill and knowledge. Line workers, machinists, and product designers are thrown out of work; then their suppliers and technical advisers struggle as well. Entire American communities of engineering practice have dissolved, leaving behind a region known as the Rust Belt. Some mayors and governors tried to stem this receding tide. But they were continuously scorned by economists and executives, who sought low-wage production in the name of globalization. Still today, many American economists doubt there is anything special about manufacturing and put their faith in the inevitable march to a service economy.
年轻人高喊口号、悬挂标语、举着白纸——在任何民主国家，这些都只能算是微不足道的抗议行为。但在中国，尤其是在习近平投入大量资源进行监控和执法以压制此类示威活动之后，公开的反抗行为是多么罕见，这一点怎么强调都不为过。我绝对想不到会在上海听到“打倒共产党，习近平下台！”的口号，而警察却袖手旁观。即便这些行为规模不大，北京的桥上男子和上海的年轻人也值得因其勇气而被铭记。
Low-wage ecosystems like Shenzhen became a giant magnet for US process knowledge. Beijing made a deliberate decision not to be like Japan, which kept its market limited to American companies; rather, China mostly welcomed foreign manufacturers to train its workers. It is some sign of China’s economic openness that so much of its exports are driven by Apple and Tesla, while Japanese exports have been driven almost entirely by its own companies. After it built up a critical mass of process knowledge, however, Shenzhen became as much an innovator of new electronics as an implementer of American ideas.
抗议者人数从来都不多。他们的特殊之处在于，抗议者大多来自中国上层阶级家庭：既有不愿忍受封锁之苦的富裕人士，也有就读名校的家境优渥的年轻人。共产党一直以来都仰仗这些人的支持。中国抗击新冠疫情的最终结果，是民众普遍的疲惫。
It’s not clear to me that it was part of Beijing’s grand strategy to rely on American companies to become a manufacturing leader. But in some cases, the state understood that’s what they were doing. Beijing did something unprecedented for Tesla in 2018: It allowed the company to fully own its plant in Shanghai. Previously, any automaker that wanted to produce in China had to partner with a domestic company. So Japanese, German, and American companies dutifully partnered with state-owned enterprises in order to access the enormous market. The state had hoped that these domestic companies would learn from the likes of Toyota and Mercedes-Benz and match their quality. In reality, Chinese automakers were sluggish from their research dependence on their foreign friends.
2022年11月，在这些抗议活动发生的同时，病毒疫情正在失控蔓延。关键是，它当时已经完全失控。在北京，随着城市进入封城状态，居民的抵制情绪日益高涨。北京人素来以挑战权威为荣，许多人担心会重蹈上海人在春季的覆辙。
Tesla’s presence jolted China’s electric vehicle market. China’s business community began using the term “catfishing” for what Tesla was doing in China. The idea was that introducing a powerful new creature into the domestic environment would make Chinese firms swim faster. That’s exactly what they did to raise their game. When Tesla vehicles started rolling out of the Shanghai Gigafactory in 2019, BYD saw its sales decline by 11 percent, while profits fell by 42 percent. But Tesla would eventually do the whole market a favor. As in the United States, the company’s audacious branding stimulated consumers to think of electric vehicles as more than high-powered golf carts. And Tesla made investments in China’s tooling ecosystem that other automakers exploited to produce better cars. BYD benefited as well, reporting record profits in 2023 and becoming the world’s largest electric vehicle maker. And even the Communist Party’s main newspaper praised how Tesla produced the “catfish effect” for Chinese firms.
政府的应对措施变得反复无常。尽管北京高层官员坚持必须继续实施疫情防控，但全国各地的地方城市几乎没有采取任何管控措施。到12月初，国家已经宣布了多轮“优化”措施，其中最后一轮甚至放弃了“动态清零”的说法。历经近三年，清零政策宣告结束。
As Grace Wang, founder of Shenzhen-based Luxshare (one of Apple’s new contract manufacturers), poetically expressed, “Flying with phoenixes will nurture outstanding birds.” It is another lesson that capitalist Shenzhen has taught the Communist Party: Market competition tends to lower prices and raise quality.
12月23日，我在上海感染了新冠病毒。我的症状较轻，但许多人却没那么幸运。时机非常不合理：正值严冬，政府却解除了所有限制措施。此前，中国并没有显著加快民众的疫苗接种；令人费解的是，在数十次强制民众进行核酸检测期间，为何没有同时接种疫苗。医生和护士事先并未收到任何关于“清零”政策会突然结束的预警，他们将不得不面对激增的患者。
Apple and Tesla have made a huge effort to train its Chinese workers to manufacture their products—and earned fabulous sums of money by doing so. These stories are replicated in varying degrees across China’s other communities of engineering practice, production hubs for shoes and garments in the eastern city of Wenzhou, medical equipment in Wuxi and Suzhou, and, most wonderfully of all, guitars in the mountains of Guizhou’s Zheng’an County. Overall, China’s manufacturing workforce employs more than a hundred million people, around eight times that of the United States. That is a big stock of people who are fueling the creation of new process knowledge.
回想起那段日子，最让我记忆犹新的是退烧药的短缺。三年来，政府为了防止人们隐瞒发烧症状，限制民众购买布洛芬、艾德维尔等退烧药。疫情爆发期间，药店甚至限制退烧药的购买，或者干脆下架。因此，很多中国人在面对新冠疫情时，手头都没有退烧药。据我所知，中国是唯一一个在疫情期间拒绝向民众提供退烧药的国家。这完美地诠释了国家机器扭曲的逻辑。
A focus on manufacturing gives China another advantage in technological competition with the United States. It can simply wait for American scientists to do the fundamental research before Chinese companies take over the production. That is, in essence, what happened with the solar industry. Bell Labs invented the first solar cell, and German companies produced solar production equipment. Beijing’s designation of solar as a “strategic emerging industry” invited Chinese companies to rush into this industry. Chinese companies bought German equipment and competed fiercely to make the most efficient solar cells. By the mid-2010s, Chinese companies figured out how to make all the German tools, as well as the entirety of the solar value chain. The plunge in solar power costs over the last decade has been driven less by breakthroughs in science—which is the United States’ strong suit—than by efficient production, which is China’s strength. The beneficiaries are not only the climate but also China’s national power.
宣传部门并没有事先发出任何特别警告，但他们却在一周内就无缝切换了说法：前一周还宣称必须彻底消灭病毒，下一周就又说每个人都必须对自己的健康负责。这感觉就像亲身经历了奥威尔笔下的场景。1984 年，官员们在演讲中途改变了方向，宣布大洋国与东亚国而非欧亚国交战。
Science matters of course. China remains weak in chips and aviation in part because these are much more scientifically complex industries than solar. Not every technology improves through iterative adjustments to manufacturing processes, but a great deal can follow its logic. When lots of companies are doing similar things, in a brutally competitive environment where profit margins are small, they establish communities of engineering practice like Shenzhen. These factories will never be as glamorous as the desirable branding represented by Apple or Tesla. Every day, millions of workers go to factories to build up technological process knowledge. That is the basis of China’s tech power.
为什么习近平突然放弃了“清零”的目标？我认为抗议活动并非主要原因。更重要的是，全国人民已经厌倦了封锁，封锁剥夺了他们的理智和生计。地方政府同样疲惫不堪，许多地方政府由于在放弃经济活动的同时进行大量检测而面临财政压力。（野村证券的经济学家估计，2022年检测成本占中国GDP的1.8%。）当病毒在北京扎根时，我怀疑中央政府认真考虑过是否能够对首都实施封锁，毕竟首都一直以来都享有最大的政治优待。全国各地的地方政府已经开始放弃各自的防控措施。北京认为疫情防控已不再可行。于是，病毒来了。
China has become a tech superpower by exalting process knowledge and the communities of engineering practice that keep it alive. Holding on to process knowledge helps us resist bad ideas about China's rise. The Communist Party would love to claim that China’s technology sector developed the way it has through wise planning from Beijing. And the American government also overstates the importance of the Chinese government through its accusations of cheating (including with unfair subsidies) or stealing (especially through cybertheft).
从12月到1月，习近平很少公开露面。他既没有出面解释为何推翻了他曾亲自力推的政策，也没有试图安抚那些正遭受疫情折磨的人们——而他的国家却花了三年时间大肆渲染这种疾病的危害。尽管国家没有公布大量新冠肺炎死亡病例，但火葬场从2022年12月底就开始不停运转。值得注意的是，中国科学院在2022年12月集中发布了多位刚刚去世的资深院士的讣告。
The results of the Chinese government’s unceasing interventions in the economy are at best ambiguous. Economic studies have shown that the recipients of Chinese subsidies have, on average, lower productivity growth. Xi’s aggressive promotion of industry has triggered trade wars with not just the United States but also many developing countries as well. China’s tech successes are no convincing demonstration that a wise state can plan the future. When the state shoves its weight around—forcing foreign companies to hand over technology, showering a favored sector with subsidies, injuring a firm while elevating another—it is often far from being helpful. The forced technology transfer agreements meant to prop up China’s state-owned automakers instead robbed their need to invest in their own innovative capacities. China’s automotive successes come from companies like privately owned BYD, which had no foreign partners, after the entrance of wholly owned Tesla forced the company to raise its game.
今年1月，官方喉舌新华社发表评论，试图反驳从“清零”到“全面”的转变是仓促计划的说法。新华社表示，“所有决定都是经过科学分析和周密计算后做出的”，而且这些决定“绝非一时冲动”。
American administrations have complained about a host of China’s trade practices: forced technology transfers; currency manipulation that keeps exports cheap; subsidies and generous credit terms for local firms, sometimes funding their expansion overseas; and, worst of all, unauthorized cyber intrusions, or the state-directed hacking to steal US trade secrets. Overall, they create an environment for foreign businesses that is often unfair and sometimes baffling.
这一转变显得过于突然，不像是精心策划的，但无关紧要。中共二十大以习近平的全面政治胜利告终。他选择的新任总理（中国政府首脑）令许多人感到不满。人物：李强，上海市委书记，正是在他的任期内实施了封城。到2024年，发达民主国家的所有执政党都失去了部分选票，包括美国的民主党，因为选民们将他们认为应对疫情不力的现任官员赶下了台。而在威权主义的中国，主导了最大规模封城的那位政治人物却被提拔到了第二高的位置。
In response, the first Trump administration launched its trade war. But it didn’t just levy tariffs on Chinese goods. It expanded and deployed novel technology controls meant to cripple Chinese firms. While I was covering the impacts of Trump’s tech war from Beijing, I remember often waking up to wonder which Chinese company he might be tweeting about. China’s tech leaders found themselves designated to sanctions lists maintained by obscure US government agencies that few US officials had even heard of. Once they’re on a list, which blocks American funding or technologies, it’s hard to get off.
因此，新冠肺炎疫情在中国的结束方式与它的开始方式一样，都受到了政治事件的影响：起初武汉当局故意忽视疫情，最后中央政府也故意忽视疫情。
I thought that the US government was right to push back against China’s mercantilist trade practices. But I also thought that it was doing so in mostly ineffective ways under Trump’s chaotic direction. In particular, I was skeptical of the security-based view of the Trump administration (as well as the successive Biden administration): that the United States still controls a lot of technological chokepoints, if only the government weren’t asleep at the wheel while China stole its way to primacy; and that if the US government stepped hard on export controls, it would be able to recover technology primacy from a country that cannot match American ingenuity.
从中国来到耶鲁法学院后，我的视野发生了一些变化。美国艰难地“与病毒共存”或许是一件好事。2023年我回到美国时，发现有一件事尤其令我恼火：一块院子里的标语牌上写着“在这个家里，我们相信科学是真理”。共产党“遵循科学”，将新冠疫情清零的理念发挥到了极致：禁止民众外出，几乎每天都进行检测，竭尽所能切断病毒传播链。四十年前，他们也曾“遵循科学”，为了推行独生子女政策，强行阻止了许多女性怀孕。
The Trump administration certainly throttled Chinese companies. But it did so by making American companies (especially those selling semiconductors) unreliable vendors. Previously, Chinese companies bought the best components on the market, which were often American, because they wanted to sell a globally competitive smartphone or drone. When they couldn’t buy American, it lit a fire under Chinese companies to try domestic vendors that they would never have previously given the time of day.
我们可以认同“科学是真实的”。但我们必须记住，如何解读科学其中蕴含着政治考量。而这正是律师群体更擅长的。他们拥有致力于维护权利的律师、能够运用社会科学思维的经济学家、关注伦理的人文主义者，以及其他众多声音，共同努力使政策建议公开辩论。中国缺乏健全的政治辩论机制；工程师们只会盲目地遵循科学，直到它导致社会贫困为止。
When I worked in Silicon Valley, people liked to say that knowledge travels at the speed of beer. Engineers like to talk to each other to solve technical problems, which is how knowledge diffuses. They are poached by rival firms or sometimes rival countries. Over the longer run, it’s difficult for countries to monopolize their dominance over any technology. If such a thing were possible, then the United States would still be behind the United Kingdom or Germany, which were much greater scientific innovators.
工程只有在使用了可靠数据的情况下才能发挥作用。然而，数据诚信是新冠疫情后中国遭受的又一重创。即使在最好的情况下，政府对准确报告的承诺也一直摇摆不定。疫情之后，政府在这方面更是雪上加霜。中国经常屈服于不公布坏消息的诱惑。中国公布的新冠肺炎相关死亡人数约为12.5万人，但这显然是严重低估，因为学术界估计的超额死亡人数接近200万人。2023年以后，中国还在许多其他数据上做了手脚，从出生率到青年失业率。
The US government has indulged a preening self-regard concerning how much technological power its country still wields. American companies have spent two decades building communities of engineering practice in China, made up of people who roll up their sleeves to figure out how to overcome their daily bottlenecks. It wasn’t going to be easy to stop their progress; if anything, American policies risked accelerating it. So far, Chinese companies have managed to innovate around most technological restraints; rather than face precipitous collapse, as US policymakers predicted, some have even managed to keep growing at a healthy clip.
想象一下，如果让原本互相厌恶的同事们在被困办公室两周、无法洗澡的情况下，如何学会妥协，会是怎样一番喜剧盛宴？或者一对情侣在迪士尼乐园里，试图解决彼此之间的问题，却被困在这个地球上最快乐的地方，又会是怎样一番爱情剧？可惜的是，政府刻意抹去了上海封城期间的任何官方记忆。工程师们希望人们忘记这段经历，而不是拿它开玩笑。
Foreign companies seeded the initial growth of zones like Shenzhen two decades ago. Now, the relationship between the United States and China has soured. Does that mean that communities of engineering practice like Shenzhen will wither? Yes, but not for a long while.
疫情过后，上海不再像“东方巴黎”，反而更像另一个平壤。这座城市依然美得令人惊叹，拥有大量的装饰艺术、新古典主义和现代主义建筑。它的娱乐方式也在不断丰富，企业家们竞相推出新的娱乐项目。但它也留下了一些不易察觉的长期创伤。仍然留在上海的欧文告诉我，人们不再经常谈论封城。“但当人们喝得酩酊大醉时，这仍然是一个令人激动的话题。”
The process of extricating manufacturing production from China will be prolonged and halting. International companies continue to tell me that they are still reluctant to completely pull up their roots from what remains an extraordinary production hub and a very big market. Apple is making immense efforts to cultivate production sites in Vietnam and India. But it is going to be gradual, since the infrastructure and labor in these countries will take a while to catch up. According to Apple’s most recent supplier report (released in 2023), 156 of its top 200 suppliers have manufacturing sites in China. Seventy-two of them are in Shenzhen’s province of Guangdong, which is as many as there are in the United States, Vietnam, and India combined.
我的朋友们感觉自己被狠狠宰了一刀：先是突如其来的封城令让他们无法囤积生活必需品，后来又连药品都买不到。他们不禁要问，四五月份的封城究竟有什么意义？仅仅九个月后就解除了。一些年纪稍长的人说，封城并非他们经历过的最糟糕的事情，他们还提到了文化大革命。然而，出生于1990年后的年轻人，此前只经历过经济繁荣，如今才真正体会到“工程化国家”可能带来的灾难。
Meanwhile, Xi Jinping is insistent about holding on to manufacturing. China’s Communist Party might be the most technology-obsessed institution in the world. The engineering state is intent on achieving tech primacy before multinationals pull away.
我认识的上海精英们都经历了一场信仰危机。他们中没有一个人……他们万万没想到，中国政府最严厉、最具威慑力的手段竟然会直接指向他们。民族主义者们喋喋不休地吹嘘了两年中国如何通过疫情控制证明其优于西方之后，一时之间噤若寒蝉。难怪中国最富裕、最具国际化都市的商业活力会下降。
On a 2023 inspection tour through Jiangsu province (like Guangdong, a manufacturing powerhouse), Xi said, “The real economy is the foundation of a country’s economy, the fundamental source of wealth creation, and an important pillar of national strength.” It is the basis, he continued, of “human production, life, and development.” He has repeatedly said that China needs to prioritize the real economy, which means the world of manufactured products, rather than the virtual or financial economy, sometimes referred to in state media as the “fictitious” economy. State-affiliated researchers commonly denounce financialization with the hollowing out of manufacturing in the same breath.
三年的疫情管控让习近平得以推行中央计划经济，这不仅体现了他所宣扬的共同繁荣中蕴含的某些平等主义理想，也体现在他对数百万民众行动的管控上。独生子女政策使共产党得以深入女性的身体；而作为“零新冠”计划一部分而发展起来的数字监控，甚至使其能够控制一个人每天洗澡的次数。如今，这两项政策之间已存在直接的制度性联系。在执行新冠封锁措施中发挥关键作用的社区委员会并未解散；它们现在被用来打电话给新婚妇女，询问她们的月经周期以及是否想要几个孩子。有些人能够忍受。但许多中国年轻人厌倦了在就业市场如此艰难的情况下，还要被老一辈男人说教要努力工作、生儿育女。
Xi isn’t just ambitious about manufacturing. A better word to describe his views might be “completionist.” Andrew Batson, research director at Gavekal Dragonomics, came upon a 2024 boast from the minister of industry and information technology that China has a “comprehensive” industrial chain, since it produces something in each of the 419 industrial product categories maintained by the United Nations to classify industrial production. It’s a very Chinese sort of boast.
第六章 中国堡垒
So the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan released in 2021 demands that the manufacturing share of the economy stay constant. Manufacturing already accounts for 28 percent of China’s GDP, which is much higher than Germany’s 21 percent and Japan’s 20 percent, to say nothing of deindustrialized economies like the United States and the United Kingdom (both around 10 percent). Xi has repeatedly stated that he’s not interested in abandoning manufacturing for services. In authoritative speeches, Xi cited “certain Western countries” that forsook the real economy for the fictitious economy. No points for guessing which Western countries these might be. And Xi has declared that “the real economy is the basis of everything . . . so we must never deindustrialize.”
疫情期间出现的最引人注目的汉语新俚语是“ rùn ”。
That is what the engineering state is about. It likes to build not just public works but also manufacturing capacity. The engineering state resists economists as easily as lawyers. Economists may cite David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage as a reason to permit production to move away. The engineering state declines, aghast at losing manufacturing because it’s somehow cooler to be in services.
它的意思正如其字面意思。中国人借用了“rùn”（意为“润湿”）的英文含义，来表达他们逃离的愿望。在变幻莫测且旷日持久的封锁期间，“rùn”的含义逐渐演变为离开疫情管控最为严格的大城市，或者干脆移居国外。2023年我离开中国后，不断遇到近年来选择移民的中国人，他们赌的是，在国外生活会更好。
So far, China hasn’t felt the economic pressure to abandon low-end manufacturing (clothing, footwear, and so on), in part because there are still a lot of poor Chinese provinces like Guizhou that have cheap labor. That trend might not hold given escalating tariffs. But if Xi is successful, it means that other developing countries (in Asia, Africa, and around the world) will be unable to climb the industrial ladder that China reigns over. Developed countries have reason to be alarmed as well. Since China is so large, it has the financial firepower to target any industry it wants for technological leadership. Small countries have had to pick their battles, as Denmark did in the wind industry and South Korea did with memory chips.
年轻人想去欧洲、美国或英语国家，但这些国家的政府往往对中国人发放签证很吝啬。因此，许多中国人选择移民到亚洲邻近国家。那些雄心勃勃、充满创业精神的人涌向新加坡，因为像字节跳动这样的中国公司在那里设立了大型办事处。而那些有钱有势的人则在日本享受着舒适的生活。其他人——懒散的人、自由奔放的人、想放松的年轻人——都在泰国闲逛。
China wants to have it all.
2023年底，我在泰国清迈待了一个月，和一群“流氓”（rùn）待在一起。前一年我在云南生活时就认识了他们中的许多人。他们都是年轻而富有创造力的人。这些从事新闻、艺术或科技行业的人，在感到被封锁和政治言论管制压得喘不过气后，来到了中国西南部的这片山区。云南的官员们往往比较宽容，对这些年轻人白天沉浸于加密货币项目、晚上在地下酒吧消遣的行为睁一只眼闭一只眼。这些自由奔放的人对我来说很有意思，他们与主流文化形成了鲜明的对比。他们拒绝北京和深圳的都市生活，想要创造属于自己的人生。
China’s political leadership has long cherished its hatred of Western domination and nurtured its fantasy that the country could have succeeded if only it had science, technology, and industrial production. Every Chinese leader since the Qing emperors who lost the Opium Wars has felt aggrieved about falling behind in technology. Maintaining an industrial base is the best guarantee that China won’t lose again. This thread runs through China’s modern leaders, from Nationalist Sun Yat-sen, his protégé Chiang Kai-shek, and then the Communist rulers too. Deng Xiaoping launched his great project to unshackle China from socialism by appealing to the Four Modernizations: agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology. In recent years, Xi Jinping has issued increasingly urgent calls to make China advanced and self-sufficient in technology, though often in bland mouthfuls like the “innovation-driven development strategy” or the Marx-inspired “new productive forces.”
但近年来，即使是云南的入境限制也越来越严格。因此，这些人中的一些人乘飞机翻越山脉，前往泰国。为什么是泰国？因为方便。中国人可以免签短期访问泰国；长期居留也并不难安排。如果他们报名参加语言课程或泰拳课程，就有资格申请教育签证。他们对这些教育要求，甚至对生活本身，都不太认真。他们二十多岁或三十出头，试图弥补疫情初期三年里错过的乐趣。
An obsession with technology has spawned what is perhaps the most interesting online movement in China. In the heavily censored realm of the Chinese internet, where no group is allowed to be very organized, one set of intellectuals has made themselves heard. They are loosely affiliated writers who refer to themselves as the Industrial Party. Their views are simple to summarize: that nation-states ruthlessly compete with each other; that science and technology are the decisive forces in this Darwinian competition; and that therefore the state must be organized around the pursuit of science and technology. They patriotically view the Communist Party as the world’s most capable political organization for this pursuit.
他们中的许多人都在泰国体验着极其严苛的灵修方式。清迈是一座美丽的圣城，遍布着金顶寺庙和修道院。人们可以在这些寺庙里进行冥想静修，或者前往附近山区更为隐秘的静修处。在这些地方，人们每天静默冥想长达十四个小时，每天早上只与住持交谈，汇报前一天的呼吸练习，并聆听接下来的指导。一位修行者告诉我，在连续二十天坚持这种修行方式后，他发现自己时不时会出现幻觉体验。
I’ve spent months reading some of the foundational texts around the Industrial Party. A few of these works have English translations, but most are left untouched, with much of the writing consisting of screeds on online bulletins. They tend to carry a combative tone that scorns liberals, advocates of democracy in China, and, sometimes, leftists who yearn for Mao. They set themselves against those guilty of romanticism, which they label as the Sentimental Party.
另一个精神源泉来自实际运用。在清迈，迷幻药随处可见。泰国是亚洲第一个将大麻合法化的国家，大麻店几乎和咖啡馆一样常见。似乎每个人都有一段关于服用迷幻蘑菇、死藤水，甚至是更强效的迷幻剂的故事。据说最好的迷幻蘑菇生长在象粪中，这让我想起一个关于一群传奇背包客的故事：他们在漫长的旅途中，不断地从一个象粪堆跳到另一个象粪堆。
The stalwarts of the Industrial Party have diverse backgrounds. The eldest member, Wang Xiaodong, introduced the party name in an online essay in 2011. Wang had trained as an economist and found his calling as a fierce nationalist: Since the 1990s, he has written scathing books calling for China not to slavishly follow Western (and mostly American) values, culminating in a bestseller, China Is Unhappy, which issued a blunt call to take a more confrontational approach with the American-led order.
我与在清迈度假的年轻华人以及一些长期居民交谈，了解他们选择定居于此的原因。他们都不是轻易做出移民决定的。
Zhong Qing trained as an electrical engineer in Japan and developed his views by establishing an early presence on China’s online bulletin boards. His 2005 book Wash Dishes or Study? called for full technocratic control over the economy in order to pursue science and technology. That meant forgoing low-end manufacturing to pursue a crash program building fighter jets and semiconductors. The most active contributor to the Industrial Party ideas over the past few years is a pseudonymous writer named Shenzhen Ningnanshan, who describes himself as a middle-class person based in Shenzhen, who might be working with a state-affiliated think tank. Shenzhen Ningnanshan’s articles are fully in line with the Chinese state’s orthodoxy, advocating for a gradualist approach to science and technology investment, with a focus on semiconductors in order to break the US stranglehold on this technology. That makes him more of a political moderate in the Industrial Party.
易居是清迈重新开始的人之一。他是一位三十多岁的软件开发人员，性格友善，因为长时间对着电脑屏幕，身材略显臃肿。他曾在硅谷工作过一段时间，但在2018年被加密货币热潮所吸引。于是，他回到了中国，当时中国正处于加密货币活动的中心。和许多加密货币领域的人一样，易居身上也体现着某种理想主义。他热衷于发表宣言，阐述他对经济运行方式以及人们应该如何更加友善的看法，这充分体现了他的理想主义。但与许多加密货币领域的人不同的是，他也经常静静地思考技术的局限性以及中国对他而言的意义。
Perhaps the most interesting way that the Industrial Party’s ideas have been propagated is through an online novel, The Morning Star of Lingao, which has been serialized by a group of authors since 2009. It is an alternate-history project that imagines that five hundred people from contemporary China traveled back in time to Lingao County in Hainan (the tropical island that is China’s southernmost province) in the year 1628. Their goal? To trigger an industrial revolution in the Ming dynasty. Ma Qianzu is a writer involved in the early creation of this series and is one of the more interesting personalities on the Chinese internet. Ma propelled the Industrial Party toward a breakout moment in 2011: After China’s deadliest train collision, he forcefully advocated that the state should press forward with its development of the high-speed rail program (which it did). Ma is also a thinker with an independent streak. In recent years, he has exposed wasteful government spending and has been critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These unusual positions have sometimes landed him in the censors’ crosshairs.
“感觉中国就像一个天花板越来越低的地方，”易菊有一天对我说，“想留下来，就得低着头，弓着背。”
None of these writers would proclaim himself a card-carrying member of the Industrial Party. They are loosely connected bloggers only sometimes in conversation with each other. Ma Qianzu has rejected the label of Industrial Party, and Wang Xiaodong has renounced some of his earlier nationalism. In recent years, he has said that China is not yet ready to sever ties with the West. A few of these writers work in academia and think tanks, which suggests direct ties to the policymakers; some of their views are reprinted in China’s state media. A few, interestingly, have studied in Japan, calling for China to imitate its wartime tormentor. Many are military nerds, who know by heart the specs of different leading fighter jets. For them, there is no problem heavy industry cannot solve.
清迈的年轻人告诉我，在习近平执政的这十年里，他们的世界观悄然崩塌。这些人成长于大城市，就读于不错的大学，其中一些还是海外院校，这让他们抱有一些美好的憧憬：他们渴望拥有有意义的职业生涯，社会将获得更大的自由，中国将继续与世界其他地区更加紧密地融合。然而，这些愿望大多已经破灭。他们萎靡不振。虽然在大城市的生活可能相当惬意，可以去尝试新开的奶茶店，或者去艺术空间自拍，但他们的工作却压力巨大且枯燥乏味。他们感到被政治控制所束缚。封城之后，他们中的许多人意识到，自己有一种不愿承认的倾向，那就是总是把未来的每一种可能性都解读成灾难。
I wonder, when I read these works, whether the Industrial Party is a modern name for an old idea. These writers have a futurist bent, they denounce liberal niceties, and they demand total mobilization of the economy to pursue science and technology.
并非所有人都乐于搬到泰国，因为他们看不到那里良好的就业前景。他们也并非都鼓起勇气告诉父母自己的真实位置：父母一直以为他们在欧洲留学。为了维持这个假象，他们可能会玩一些精心设计的“游戏”，比如在和家人视频聊天时拉上窗帘，让房间变暗，因为他们应该身处完全不同的时区；或者密切关注自己所在城市的天气情况，这样当父母问起下雨或下雪时，他们就不会感到意外。
Are they simply reinventing fascism? The Industrial Party wants to depoliticize society to enable rule by technocrats, who would wield the propaganda organs to motivate people to pursue science and manufacturing. They are a heavily male group that mocks pluralism. They are not advocating conquest, but they do pine for a future in which China is stronger than any other nation. The Industrial Party tends not to cite a broad range of thinkers, only forceful leaders like Mao or Stalin who repelled invaders and established an industrial base. It is a worship of strength through technology.
易居在反对新冠疫情白皮书的抗议活动后逃离了清迈。当警察找上门来询问时，他躲进了一座寺庙。清迈的许多其他居民也参与了反对新冠限制措施的抗议活动，他们的朋友中有人被捕。每个人都经历了某种程度的疏离感。一些人在北京对数字平台的打压中失去了工作。一些人曾在国内媒体工作，对审查制度深感不满。尤其是作家，他们很难承受这样的打击：耗费数月心血创作的报道，却在发表几小时后就被审查员删除。第一次遇到这种情况，你会感到愤怒；第二次你会感到痛苦；第三次你会感到绝望。
The one work that much of the Industrial Party has rallied around is the science fiction trilogy by Liu Cixin. The Three-Body Problem is one of China’s most successful cultural exports in the past decades, earning praise from American readers as well as a big-budget Netflix adaptation. I have been deeply drawn in by the trilogy myself. Its premise is that a victim of Mao’s Cultural Revolution grew so disgusted with humanity that she invited extraterrestrials to conquer human civilization; when her action is discovered, governments have a few decades to prepare for the invasion.
在清迈，这些创意人士聚集在一家由记者创办的书店周围。这家名为“无处书店”（Nowhere Books）的书店最初在台湾开设了第一家分店，之后在清迈开设了第二家分店，专门出售在大陆买不到的书籍。“无处书店”对政治的影射十分隐晦。除了畅销书——小说、旅游指南、烹饪书——之外，这里还出售一些在大陆根本不可能出版的作者的作品。这家书店自豪地出售《全球概览》（Whole Earth Catalog）的中文版。这本加州反主流文化杂志出版于20世纪60年代末至70年代初，倡导读者“自主学习”。书店里还随处可见一些略带颠覆意味的标志：一张乌鲁木齐路路牌的贴纸——这条路曾是上海抗议活动的中心；以及书店发放的趣味护照，邀请顾客加入“无名共和国”。
Liu’s story spans not only galaxies but also eighteen million years. He created startling images: a silver probe resembling the shape of a water droplet that destroys most of Earth’s spacefleet; a particle the size of a proton that contains a whole world; a starry sky that flickers for a single observer. Major characters struggle with strategic questions involving deduction and deception, and a wrong move could be fatal not to the individual but to humanity at large.
我的很多朋友，包括中国人和外国人，也都有rùn。
The morality of the Three-Body trilogy is, meanwhile, animated by the bleakest of worldviews. On one level, the trilogy is a celebration of humanity’s ingenuity in an existential struggle. To defeat the alien threat, Liu depicts humanity’s total subordination to technocratic authorities. Scientists and engineers are the ultimate decisionmakers, leaving no room for humanists, the faint of heart, or sentimentalists. Governments are made to submit to the will of select geniuses who do not hesitate to sacrifice millions. The prevailing idea in Liu’s trilogy is that the only hard truth is survival, where opposing civilizations resemble “blood-drenched pyramids lit by insidious fires seen through dark forests.” Again and again, Liu resolves the plot in favor of the party that is willing to be the most brutal in its will to survive.
疫情爆发前，上海的外国人口就已经开始下降：2010年至2020年间，这座中国国际化程度最高的城市失去了四分之一的长期外籍居民。自封城以来，这一数字更是大幅下滑。上海曾吸引着众多国内外人士，他们对这座城市的经济和创意产业的蓬勃发展充满热情。对于企业高管而言，过去被派驻中国是通往高管层的捷径。但如今，随着中国市场格局的改变（政治复杂性和数据管控等因素），这种优势已不再明显，在中国工作被视为一种困境。随着中国经济增速放缓，人们开始质疑自己为何要生活在一个增长前景不明朗、充满动荡的地方。
It’s easy to see why Industrial Party enthusiasts have elevated Liu’s work to the top of its canon. It may as well be, in addition, a guide to the ideology of the engineering state.
习近平或许不会对那些想要离开的创意人才感到特别不满。他可能也不会太在意那些离开上海的外籍人士，即便他们在苹果或特斯拉这样的大公司工作。但北京方面对大量富人将资金转移出境表现出了更大的担忧。
China took up a lot of the dirty industries that the United States was happy to get rid of. In some cases, literally: Rare earth metals are not really rare. Processing them, however, demands enormous amounts of energy and water while spewing carcinogens into the atmosphere. Few parts of the Western world have the stomach for processing rare earth metals, which is why China controls this supply chain.
我的朋友杰西出身富裕家庭，在上海和温哥华两地长大。她身材高挑，一头卷发，比起阅读新闻，她更喜欢去健身房上课。她以前对政治事件并不怎么关注，觉得没必要浪费时间在那些往往阴郁晦涩的事情上。
Most forms of low-end manufacturing aren’t as bad as that, but the United States was just as willing to let them go, with little understanding of how much it would hurt the country. It’s hard, I admit, to draw a straight line between the loss of, for example, television manufacturing in the United States through the 1980s to the stumbles by Boeing and Intel over the past decade. But if we think about technology ecosystems as communities of engineering practice, it makes sense that factory closures accelerated as process knowledge dissolved, prompting production problems and more job losses. And it also makes sense that Chinese workers went from merely assembling iPhones to producing some of their most valuable components as well. As one country lost its process knowledge, the other gained whole industries.
然后她经历了上海长达两个月的封城。之后，杰西开始关注政治。“这些事可能会影响到我们，你“我知道，”杰西有一天来纽约探望我时告诉我。她指的是中央委员会第三次全会。
The United States has changed its mind on policy: It wants manufacturing jobs back. But how to achieve that is terribly unclear. Tariffs under Trump and subsidies under Biden haven’t decisively moved the needle. Indeed, China’s goods exports to the United States hit a near record in 2022, the same level as in 2018, when the Trump administration initiated tariffs on China.
“真的吗？”我惊讶地问道，没想到她竟然在监视这场为期一周的聚会。
How can the United States do better? As a starting point, it could develop a better understanding of how China has grown into a technology superpower. If members of Congress continue to resort to the laziest explanations (“they’re just stealing all our IP”), then the United States will never grasp the importance of building up process knowledge. And it will fail to gain urgency to fix its technological deficiencies.
“你永远不知道他们会做什么，”杰西说。当我问她政党声明是否曾促使她采取行动时，她回答说没有。对她来说，关注政党声明本身就是一种新鲜事。我觉得，这或许会促使她未来更积极地参与政治活动。
At the same time, Americans should develop a bit more humility about their own technological capabilities. The sooner that the United States treats China as a peer worth studying, the sooner it can develop a new playbook for success. Chinese companies are currently beating the rest of the world in the production of electric vehicle batteries. So why not allow a few of them to build factories, as they are trying to do, in states like Michigan, and force them to give up their technology? The US government could force Chinese battery makers to transfer intellectual property in exchange for accessing the giant US market for cars.
杰西虽然计划在温哥华居住的时间越来越多，但她仍然扎根于上海。许多其他富裕的中国人也决定在其他地方永久定居。虽然很难精确统计，但一家总部位于英国的移民公司估计，2023年将有近14000名百万富翁从中国移民，2024年则超过15000人。美国一些深受华人欢迎的地区，例如加利福尼亚州的尔湾市，新购房者数量激增。美国和加拿大都报告称，通过大笔投资（例如购买房产）获得永久居留权的中国移民人数翻了一番：2019年至2023年间，加拿大从2000人增至4000人；2019年至2024年间，美国从3900人增至7500人。
And which types of technologies the United States should pursue is also worth meditating on. Should it really go all in on artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, and other things that the Communist Party mocks as the fictitious economy? Or should it pursue the sorts of heavy industry that have long fallen out of fashion among American elites and out of favor among American investors?
一些境遇不佳的中国人则选择了另一条前往美国的途径：跋涉穿越西南边境，一路艰辛。美国边境官员逮捕的中国公民人数不断攀升：从2021年的450人激增至2024年的38000人。由于边境执法力度加大，2024年下半年人数有所减少。但即便如此，过去两年里，每月仍有超过一千名中国公民试图徒步越境。许多人先飞往厄瓜多尔（该国直到2024年7月才开始要求中国公民办理签证），然后冒险穿越达连隘口。
The reality is that the United States will never again be a bigger manufacturer than China. Its much smaller population, the higher wage and standard-of-living expectations, and the dollar’s status as a global reserve currency make that harder. On a practical level, it is difficult to imagine that Americans can tolerate the work habits of people in Shenzhen or Henan: working on assembly lines for eight hours a day, eating at cafeterias at designated times, crammed six to a dorm room at night. Manufacturing workers in the Midwest like to drive their pickup trucks home.
创意人士的海外流散群体在美国发起了一系列文化活动。纽约和华盛顿特区都出现了像清迈的“无处可寻”（Nowhere in Chiang Mai）这样的新型中文书店。每月一次，纽约都会举办女权主义活动。这个团体举办了一个开放麦喜剧表演，让喜剧演员用普通话表演。门票总是很快售罄，我能抢到一张票真是幸运。十月的一个寒冷的日子，我去了曼哈顿中城一家意大利餐厅，这家餐厅租用了地下室举办演出。那天大约有一百人聚集在那里，聆听十位女性的“故事接龙”表演，而不是通常的脱口秀。其中一位讲述了她如何耍手段混进柏林一家高级夜总会，还有几位分享了她们的约会经历。大多数故事都比较悲伤：比如失业或祖母去世。每当表演者声音哽咽或讲故事出现卡壳时，观众都会给予极大的鼓励。
Everything starts from the recognition that something has gone quite wrong in US technology. Too many people have argued away the strategic importance of manufacturing. And the solution has to involve reconstituting its communities of engineering practice that prioritize process knowledge. It means attempting to build up every segment of manufacturing: training workers and creating incentives for manufacturers in order to relearn mass production.
十年前，或许很难想象纽约会有一群女权主义者用普通话组织脱口秀，而这其中又蕴含着一股强烈的政治不满。随着习近平的强势领导，越来越多的中国人对中国的发展方向感到不满。最令人惊讶的是，那些走投无路的移民竟然愿意放弃习近平所宣扬的“中国梦”，踏上长达数月、充满危险的旅程，穿越美国西南边境。
This scenario sounds a bit fantastic, but if the iPhone were built in the United States rather than Shenzhen, then an American city—say, Detroit, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh—might be hailed as the hardware capital of the world. The follow-on innovations in consumer drones, hoverboards, electric vehicle batteries, and virtual reality headsets could have sprung from American firms. Engineers wouldn’t have to fly from Cupertino across the Pacific to reach their giant factories. They could iterate on product improvements closer to home, labeling their newest products “Designed in California, Assembled in Pennsylvania.”
为什么还有这么多中国人离开？因为整整几代人都感觉被中国经济体制剧烈的波动所折磨。他们在中国的工作，乃至生活，都像是走到了尽头。虽然在泰国收入也不算高，但他们能在轻松的氛围中享受生活。
The United States must regain, at a minimum, the manufacturing capacity to scale up production that emerges from its own industrial labs. If it does not, continuing to value scientific breakthroughs rather than mass manufacturing, then it might lose whole industries once more—as it did by inventing the solar photovoltaic panel but relying on China to produce them. The United States likes to celebrate the light-bulb moment of genius innovators. But there is, I submit, more glory in having big firms making a product rather than a science lab claiming its invention. Otherwise, US scientists would once again build a ladder toward technological leadership only to have Chinese firms climb it.
习近平曾谈到要实现国家伟大，却不以经济增长作为支撑。问题在于，当人们遭受苦难时——比如房地产崩盘、高失业率或封锁——他们开始质疑自己究竟得到了什么。显然，这并非财富积累。当他们被某种与伟大毫不相干的事物狠狠打击时，他们会感到迷茫无助。这种疏离感正是民众流失的重要原因之一。
Shenzhen, one day, will lose its gleam. Perhaps that process has already started. On my last visit there in 2021, I passed by the Huaqiangbei electronics market, where vendors were selling more cosmetics than cables and capacitors. Hardware has become too commoditized a business, forcing the entrepreneurial folks at Huaqiangbei to turn their attention to China’s growing demand for skin-care products. It’s hard to imagine eye creams are in line with Xi’s goal to resist deindustrialization. And yet, there it is, in a trend that a state media headline captured as “Huaqiangbei Trades Computer Chips for Lipsticks.”
在中国待了六年之后，我开始怀念多元化的社会。身处一个由各种声音组成的社会，而不是只有官方的声音凌驾于其他所有声音之上，是多么美好。我怀念美国人那种随和友善的氛围，以及一个相对不干涉民众的政府。最重要的是，我怀念可以订购书籍的自由。为了能够阅读纸质书，我只能依靠父母定期给我寄包裹，通常一次寄来二十公斤重的包裹，同时还要承受被海关没收的风险。打开包裹，看看有多少书通过了海关的检查，这种感觉反而让我更加兴奋。但这种刺激，其实没有也挺好。
Was it an indication that not even the engineering state can resist consumer demands, yielding to the onrush of time? The moment was a brief one. Huaqiangbei returned once more to selling mostly electronics, as the tidal wave of Chinese industrial products is now washing up against the rest of the world. Overinvestment and an insistence against deindustrialization has protected China, for now, from suffering the unhappy fate of the American Rust Belt.
所以，在疫情“零感染”政策崩溃后，我从上海搬到了耶鲁法学院。上海有很多方面都胜过任何美国城市：适宜步行且安全的街道、充满活力的街头生活、美味佳肴，以及便捷的公共交通，可以轻松前往市内乃至全国任何地方。然而，正是中国政府的强势存在——审查制度、对异议的零容忍以及挥之不去的灾难威胁——最终让我离开了上海。防火长城的管理者们决定屏蔽我的个人网站，我在那里发布我的年度信件。我至今仍然百思不得其解。
China would be better off if engineers confined themselves to building in the physical world. But they have been more ambitious than that. Beijing is made up, unfortunately and fundamentally, of social engineers. One of the major threats to China’s tech power—and its global position more broadly—is the result of a disastrous decision undertaken decades ago to engage in population engineering.
我在中国期间，对一些事情的看法发生了改变。
Chapter 4 One Child
2017年初我搬到香港时，曾幻想我们正处于“亚洲世纪”的开端，中国和印度将使亚洲重现几个世纪前的经济主导地位。我未必真的相信这一点，但这并非天方夜谭。毕竟，唐纳德·特朗普一边对专制国家投以赞赏的目光，一边却对加拿大、欧洲以及其他美国盟友大发雷霆。相比之下，习近平展现出增强中国实力的沉稳决心。尽管我现在对中国的弱点有了更深刻的认识，但其中一些观点仍然成立。中国还有很多方面需要改进。虽然我可能在很多方面都取得了成功，但我离开中国时对中国体制的自我限制性有了更深刻的认识。最显著的是，共产党对中国人民抱有不信任和恐惧，这限制了他们发展的潜力。
The pursuit of population control forged the essence of China’s modern engineering state. Through the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping and the leadership in Beijing decided that promoting engineers into the central government was a counterstroke against Mao’s misrule. They were gripped, however, by a misbegotten scientism, which used straight-line projections to predict catastrophe if China did not diminish its population. The engineering state’s pursuit of the one-child policy produced more social pain than any of its other policies over the last half century. And as the state attempts to reverse its effects, it is once more employing the tools of social engineering.
工程领域的变革往往开局惊艳，结局惨淡。追求“清零”新冠疫情并非我亲身经历的唯一例证。习近平对中国数字平台发起的监管风暴便是另一个例证。
In the fall of 2013, Xi Jinping gathered the leadership of the All-China Women’s Federation around him at the Communist Party’s headquarters in Beijing. Xi had ascended to China’s highest office a year before. Looking relaxed and genial, wearing the party’s standard working uniform of a zipped-up windbreaker, he told the party-linked organization that officially represents women’s issues that China’s economic development depends on equality between sexes. Achieving it would enable “hundreds of millions of women to shoulder greater responsibilities.” The leadership of the women’s federation listened intently while taking notes as they sat around him.
2024年5月，习近平在山东省出席一场企业家和投资者研讨会时，向与会者问道：“为什么独角兽企业越来越少？” 这句不经意的提问在网络上引发了一阵小小的波澜。为什么中国不再是估值超过10亿美元的科技初创企业的领头羊？在评论被审查之前，有人发帖称：“但是，先生，您才是罪魁祸首”；“北京的领导层大院连不上网？”；“他们被白纸吓跑了。”
Ten years later, Xi addressed a new round of the federation’s leadership. He’d lost a bit of weight, and his hair was grayer, but much else was the same: Xi wore the same workwear and sat in the same room, in which listeners intently took notes. Though he still wore his genial smile, his speech carried a steelier undertone. Rather than encouraging women to seek self-realization in economic development, he advised them to build families.
习近平的提问引发了商界新的担忧。专制体制不擅长传播坏消息。毕竟，新冠病毒的传播正是因为武汉地方官员为了维护政治稳定，逮捕了医疗吹哨人。因此，企业和投资者不禁质疑，习近平是否真的没有意识到他的政策对经济的诸多重要领域造成了多大的破坏。或许没人告诉过习近平，他才是最令人畏惧的“独角兽猎人”。
The vision Xi laid out to the women seated around him in 2023 sounds rather traditionalist. A woman’s role is to keep the husband happy and the elders cared for; most important of all, she should have kids. “We should,” Xi said, “cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbirth.” That means imposing the party’s doctrine on “how young people should view love and marriage, having children, and building a family.” The Economist’s headline on the meeting was frank: “China wants women to stay home and bear children.”
曾几何时，中国涌现出一批势头强劲的科技公司，其发展速度甚至一度超越了硅谷的独角兽企业。它们在电子商务、网约车和社交媒体领域与美国同行展开了激烈的竞争。有时，它们会得到北京的帮助——最显著的例子就是中国政府为了扶持百度和腾讯等本土平台而将谷歌和脸书挤出市场。有时，它们也会通过残酷的竞争，相对公平地击败亚马逊和优步等美国公司。字节跳动TikTok开创了短视频应用的新纪元，与此同时，新的电商平台如雨后春笋般涌现，对阿里巴巴构成挑战。这家公司那位作风张扬的创始人马云，与硅谷其他一些特立独行的人物相比，也毫不逊色。
Earlier in 2023, China announced its first population decline since 1960 (the year millions starved from Mao’s Great Leap Forward). The population drop was slight. But it was the start of a dip that will yawn larger each year for decades. By 2100, China’s population is projected to halve to seven hundred million. Childbearing is collapsing in China. The country’s official (and certainly overstated) number of new births has undershot even the most pessimistic projections. In 2019, China had fifteen million births; four years later, it fell to nine million. The number was below what the United Nations described as a “low-fertility scenario” only a few years before. Six million Chinese married in 2024, half the level of a decade ago. Chinese families now have a lifetime average of 1.0 children, far below the 2.1 children needed for a stable population.
在监管宽松的时代，中国的独角兽企业成长为庞然大物。陆炜担任国家互联网信息办公室主任，是互联网监管的领军人物。他在这个职位上颇具传奇色彩。2018年前后，我走访北京的几家创业公司时，听到了一些耸人听闻的故事：据说陆炜会持有公司股份，然后利用其监管权限为这些公司谋利；有时，他会走进办公室，对女员工的外貌评头论足，期待高管们心领神会。他的执政特点是监管宽松，或许是因为他本人也是互联网行业蓬勃发展的受益者。
In May 2023, Xi has shoved aside political convention to hang on as China’s top leader for a third term. While doing so, he wrecked another norm: excluding women from the top leadership of the Communist Party. For decades, the Politburo has had at least one woman serving in the twenty-five-member group. She was often given the party’s toughest tasks: Wu Yi managed negotiations for acceding to the World Trade Negotiation and handled the 2003 SARS outbreak; Sun Chunlan oversaw the enforcement of lockdowns related to Covid. Both Wu and Sun stood out for their abilities in a field of sometimes mediocre men. For his third term, Xi shrank the Politburo to twenty-four members, dropping the one space that had been given to a woman. By locking women out of China’s political leadership, Xi might well have been trying to set an example.
2018年，陆兆辉失势。中央纪委开除了陆兆辉，并公布了一份措辞异常严厉的罪名清单。清单不仅包括常见的受贿指控，还包括“欺骗中央领导”和“以权谋私”等罪名。陆兆辉随后写了一封自嘲信，这封信后来被收藏在庆祝中国改革开放四十周年的国家博物馆中。
The female body is now a fixation of the Politburo’s all-male political gaze. Xi’s administration has overseen a crackdown on homosexuality in China in addition to his campaign to impose traditionalism on childbearing. It’s not the first time that fertility was politicized: Mao Zedong promoted births because he believed it would deter imperialist invasion. It’s not the second time either: Deng Xiaoping implemented an infernal system of population control. Population engineering has now seesawed a third time, back to birth promotion under Xi.
中国科技公司一度即将说服全球投资者，它们能够达到硅谷巨头的估值水平。然而，在国内，它们却引发了与美国同行类似的民怨，面临着滥用企业权力打压小型企业以及数据保护不力等指控。陆伟的倒台也宣告了监管宽松时代的终结。
Mao Zedong was not an engineer. He was a librarian at Peking University who then helped found the Communist Party, after which he became a warlord. After he established the People’s Republic in 1949, Mao’s stature became nearly godlike. He spent much of his time reading literature and philosophy, leaving the details of running the state to technocratic deputies like Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and Chen Yun. Mao’s gifts in military leadership as well as poetry collided in a folksy slogan he was fond of repeating: Ren duo, li liang da. With people come power.
随后，新的监管机构宣布将对数字平台采取“整改措施”。一位字节跳动前高管公开指控该公司为卢伟聪行贿提供便利。字节跳动也因此成为调查对象，最终导致该公司发表了卑躬屈膝的公开道歉声明。创始人。“我充满了悔恨和愧疚，彻夜难眠，”时任CEO的张一鸣在给员工的信中写道。“我们的产品与社会主义核心价值观不符……我负有责任，因为我没有达到监督机关的指导和期望。”
In 1949, China was the world’s most populous nation. After decades of warfare, the new state didn’t know how many people were within its borders. Officials guessed that China’s population might be around five hundred million people. When the 1953 census counted nearly six hundred million, it was mostly a cause for celebration.
但中国的科技平台持续扩张，发展出一些国家不具备甚至几乎不了解的数字能力。中央领导层开始发出不祥的预兆。习近平警告“资本无序扩张”，并承诺“深化结构性改革”。从2020年底开始，北京对数字经济展开了全面整顿。各级政府机构纷纷出手干预。
Mao viewed a big population as a source of strength. He had spent nearly half his life as a military leader fighting Nationalists and Japanese. Only a year after proclaiming the new communist state, he sent troops into Korea, mostly to fight US forces who were newly armed with nuclear weapons. Various world leaders were taken aback by his serene attitude toward atomic attack. In 1954, Mao boasted to Jawaharlal Nehru that he did not fear a nuclear strike by the United States. The imperialists, he declared, simply wouldn’t have enough bombs to annihilate the hardy Chinese people. Three years later, he told a stunned Nikita Khrushchev, “We shouldn’t be afraid of atomic missiles. No matter what sort of war breaks out, conventional or thermonuclear, we’ll win.” Mao declared he was ready to lose half of the population to fight imperialists. “The years will pass, and we’ll get to work producing more babies than ever before.” Khrushchev later cut off Soviet support to China’s nuclear program, in part out of alarm for Mao’s casualness toward apocalypse.
证券监管机构叫停了由马云创立的金融科技公司蚂蚁金服的上市计划，指控其制造金融不稳定。数据监管机构对刚刚在纽约证券交易所上市的网约车应用滴滴出行展开调查，理由是其涉嫌危害国家安全，但指控含糊不清。新闻监管机构宣布，未成年人每周只能在指定时间玩电子游戏：周五、周六和周日的晚上8点至9点。反垄断机构对大型平台展开了一系列调查。就连教育部也加入了这场“大搜捕”：教育部宣布，在正规学校教育体系之外提供补充课程的在线教育行业已无法盈利。
Karl Marx had criticized Thomas Malthus’s work on overpopulation. Mao, following Marx’s lead, thought it was absurd that a country could have too many people. “It is a very good thing that China has a big population,” he wrote in 1949. “Even if China’s population multiplies many times, it is fully capable of finding a solution. That solution is production. The absurd argument of Western bourgeois economists like Thomas Malthus that increases in food cannot keep pace with increases in population was not only thoroughly refuted in theory by Marxists long ago but has also been completely exploded by the realities in the Soviet Union and China.”
2021年，几乎没有一家中国大型科技公司能够幸免于难。习近平发起的监管风暴使中国公司的市值蒸发了万亿美元。教育集团新东方市值缩水90%，随后裁员60%。阿里巴巴的市值在两年内从8000亿美元暴跌至仅剩四分之一。蚂蚁金服IPO取消后，马云从公众视野中消失了数月。与此同时，中国证券监管机构也对中国企业进行了严厉的监管。美国和中国都提高了公司上市的门槛。习近平追求“清零”的目标也重创了科技公司重点关注的服务业。疫情后复苏的经济呈现出青年失业率高企、家庭信心不足、消费需求疲软的局面。
Not all the other state leaders agreed. While Mao pondered literature and philosophy, Deng Xiaoping had an economy to centrally plan. Deng and other state leaders decided that five-year plans were too difficult to execute if the state could not control population. They were able to prevail on Mao to accept a few family planning policies. Through the 1970s, Mao authorized a birth control policy that included a series of incentives and fines, promoting later marriage and greater contraceptive access.
在如此贫瘠的土地上，独角兽企业难以培育。尤其是在一个庞大的猎手紧追不舍，确保它们符合社会主义核心价值观的情况下。因此，创办初创企业的企业家越来越少，中国的风险投资也大幅萎缩。
But Mao was also temperamental. Sometimes he listened to others; other times, he writhed against their restraints. Before Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, China’s population surpassed seven hundred million. The continuous agitation that Mao set in motion wrought a decade of political convulsion. At the Cultural Revolution’s peak, groups of workers battled over leftist doctrine, mobs pummeled people they declared to be counterrevolutionaries in mass rallies, and most schooling and work ceased so that people could heed Mao’s calls to revolution. The turmoil ended after Mao’s death in 1976. By then, the country was in shambles.
习近平对科技巨头的管控与许多欧美监管机构希望对硅谷采取的措施并无本质区别。世界各国政府都在努力应对那些对信息和商业流动拥有过大影响力的公司。就单个案例而言，中国在反垄断、数据保护或金融风险方面的监管或许在技术层面上站得住脚。但北京出台监管的速度和力度是其他任何国家都无法比拟的。其背后的原因与西方截然不同：为了引导投资和人才流向国家优先发展的产业，并遏制这些公司以牺牲国家利益为代价而攫取的权力。
Among the victims were the preponderance of basic government functions. The Cultural Revolution had made a mockery of anything that could be as organized as a national census. Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun (the most senior official on economic policymaking), and other top leaders knew that China’s population was large, but they were in the dark about actual numbers. The leadership guessed that the population might have surpassed nine hundred million. When statistical authorities estimated that the population numbered nearly one billion people at the end of 1978, the leadership reacted with shock. No longer was a big population a cause of celebration. So many hungry mouths threatened to overrun Deng’s modernizations.
这是美中两国政治体制截然相反的另一个方面。在美国，政治戏剧的核心是立法程序和最高法院的裁决；政策的实施很快就会被遗忘，因为政治注意力会转移到下一个重大议题上。而在中国，政策制定过程在很大程度上是秘密进行的，最终的结果却要强加给民众。
One of China’s most remarkable engineers offered a solution that sounded supremely rational. Song Jian was a missile scientist who spoke the language of mathematics and control theory. His proposed remedy was the one-child policy.
美国或欧洲或许会与硅谷科技巨头在法庭上纠缠数年，最终获得数十亿美元的罚款，但中国公司却不会挑战行政处罚。相反，它们会发表唯唯诺诺的声明，就像字节跳动创始人那样，或者像滴滴在收到巨额罚款后所写的那样：“我们衷心感谢有关部门的检查和指导。”
Song Jian was a man of considerable girth, his bulbous nose framed by full jowls under a combover. At academic conferences, in which Song often gave the keynote, he spoke with a high-pitched lisp, his remarks punctuated by smiles and energetic sweeps of his meaty hands. If Song looked smug, he had reason to feel self-satisfied: Few other scientists have had their arguments embraced by China’s top leaders. In political influence, Song Jian might be comparable to Albert Einstein, whose letter to the White House inspired the United States’ pursuit of the atomic bomb.
这些规章制度不仅仅是技术官僚式的治理手段。这些举措最终构成了一次全面的政治控制。中国的整顿既包括技术官僚式的监管，也包括试图对一个自由放任的行业施加政治约束。习近平曾多次强硬地提醒中国科技公司，它们不能成为挑战国家主权的权力中心。换句话说，这是一次试图改变企业文化思维的尝试。共产党提醒它们，它仍然拥有塑造社会各个方面的自主权，这意味着要让科技公司各就各位。
Song was born in 1931 to a rural family in Shandong, a northern province that is China’s second most populous. During Song’s childhood, the Imperial Japanese Army landed in Shandong, which would suffer some of the worst devastation of the war. Song grew up in an occupied zone and joined the Communist Eighth Route Army as a teen, serving by day and attending school at night. Song was the only person in his high school who was able to earn a spot to university. In 1953, he earned an even rarer opportunity—to study in the Soviet Union.
这种方法或许有其可取之处。例如，如果美国政府在2008年金融危机后，不是陷入无休止的谈判，最终炮制出一部无人能懂的2300页法案，而是着手重塑华尔街的风险管理文化，结果又会如何呢？但习近平试图推行的文化变革却引发了民众的不满，并导致整个行业面目全非。
At Moscow State University, Song was exposed to the thrilling new field of cybernetics. This mathematical discipline was one of several new fields, including operations research and computing, that grew from research produced during World War II. Norbert Wiener’s 1948 book Cybernetics became a hit, not because it was filled with equations but because of its intoxicating subtitle: Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine. Its central idea was to develop the mathematics to control complex systems by feeding the system’s outputs back into its algorithms as a continuous optimization. It is the study of regulation and control of technological or biological systems. Cybernetics has occupied an intellectual sweet spot: electrifying in its premise—attracting subordinate terms like “machine intelligence” and “systems analysis” that are irresistible in themselves—and constructed with an inherent vagueness that affords it the theoretical space to wriggle out of refutation. It is a concept that might go dormant but never completely falls out of fashion. The 1956 Dartmouth Conference coined the term artificial intelligence partly in reaction to cybernetics; Martin Heidegger claimed that philosophy was dying, and cybernetics would be its successor.
习近平的问题在于，他或许在所有事情上都有六成的正确性。*他所追求的长期目标通常令人钦佩。但为了实现变革，这个“工程型国家”对民众和行业施加了沉重的打击，以至于他们根本无法恢复元气。即便习近平的判断是正确的，他强硬的解决方案也总是让情况变得更糟。大型科技公司权力过大吗？没错，但打压它们的举措给创业者造成了巨大的创伤。房地产开发商负债过高吗？是的，但迫使其中许多开发商违约，导致购房者信心崩溃，延长了房地产市场的低迷期。政府需要遏制腐败吗？当然需要，但习近平对官僚机构的打压已经到了瘫痪的地步。
After Soviet and Chinese relations fell apart, Song returned to Beijing in 1960. He remained fascinated with cybernetics for the rest of his life. In Beijing, Song was appointed one of the chief scientists at the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building, the state agency in charge of rockets, where he helped to develop China’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
有时候，比中国的问题更可怕的是北京的解决方案。
Song wasn’t just a gifted scientist; he also possessed a keen sense of how to maneuver for political influence. Song fell under the tutelage of Qian Xuesen, the country’s best-known scientist, who was expelled from the United States and then helped to develop China’s nuclear weapons. Song worked on missile guidance systems by day and on a textbook with Qian called Engineering Cybernetics by night. He was well known enough to have his home ransacked during the Cultural Revolution. When students accused Song of espionage (due to his occasional exchanges with foreign scientists), an alarmed Zhou Enlai packed him and other elite scientists off to China’s satellite launching base in the Gobi Desert for their protection.
这是工程型国家的显著特征之一。中国政府常常像一群技艺精湛的消防员，扑灭着自己点燃的火焰。在武汉官员未能采取任何措施阻止新冠疫情蔓延之后，中国举国之力一度控制住了疫情的扩散。几十年前，工程型国家也曾因独生子女政策而对人口增长反应过度。如果不是北京方面频频出台监管措施，经济信心或许不会如此脆弱。
Military scientists like Song Jian constituted a politically privileged class under the socialist regime. Rather than being forced to make revolution, the state empowered them to build bombs and missiles. The Communist Party treated military scientists with greater deference than social scientists, whose pronouncements on economics or sociology frequently ran afoul of Mao. Over the 1950s, the chairman had bullied without mercy an economist who advocated for population control. Military scientists were also politically better connected than most university professors, who couldn’t count on being heard by top party leaders. Song’s privileges included engaging in scholarly exchange with parts of the outside world, as well as access to one of China’s few advanced computers. He and other military scientists had political license to stomp into whichever intellectual realm pleased them.
律师群体的优势就在这里。我们不必担心美国政府会推行独生子女政策或“零新冠”政策，因为前者他们绝不会实施，后者他们也根本不可能做到。美国也不会因此束缚如此多的科技公司。正如我在引言中所写，律师是富人的得力助手。中国的科技创始人（及其投资者）的确非常富有。由于缺乏律师，以及缺乏尊重人权的政治文化，他们根本无法获得任何保护。
At that moment, the world was gripped by anxieties over environmental doom. Natural scientists like Paul Ehrlich (coauthor of The Population Bomb, 1968) and organizations like the Club of Rome (which published The Limits to Growth in 1972) explained that as the global population exceeded the planet’s “carrying capacity,” humanity was on track to experience something between the gradual decline of living standards and the total extinction of human life. Western scientists fretted in particular about China and India, which were populous and poor. Song was still designing missiles when Mao’s death cleared the way for discussion of population controls.
在疏远了这么多人之后，习近平是否决定改变路线？不，他反而加倍提拔工程师担任领导职务。2022年，习近平第三次当选中国国家主席时，他公布了一个新的领导团队，其中不乏中国航空航天和国防工业的高管。这些人拥有管理大型项目的实践经验。中国载人航天计划的总设计师袁家军出任重庆市委书记；核工程师李干杰出任重庆市委人事总书记；中国最大的国防承包商之一的前高管张国庆出任国务院副总理。
An overseas trip to hear from environmental doomers convinced Song that China needed radical measures to control population. In 1978, he flew from Beijing to Helsinki to take part in a cybernetics conference, where he listened to the fashionable views of natural scientists who warned of catastrophe, including presentations to determine which year the apocalypse would descend. Song later wrote that he grew “extremely excited” as he listened to these remarks.
社会工程也将随之加强。2018年，习近平称赞教师是“灵魂工程师”，这一说法最早出自一个世纪前的约瑟夫·斯大林。习近平的指示越来越注重物质层面。他曾谈到热爱党和热爱国家的重要性。必须从小开始，也就是“从摇篮里抓起孩子”。党的宣传信息需要“深入人心、深入民心、深入人手”。北京公安局承诺将采取“零距离服务”的方式，与民众近距离接触。这些举措用中文听起来并不比用任何其他语言听起来更不险恶。
When he returned to Beijing, he rustled up a few other scientists from the missile ministry to study population. It was a challenge because China’s previous census was completed in 1964, and nobody had any real idea how large the population was. They had to rely on imprecise demographic extrapolations, eventually landing on two determinations:
自习近平2022年开始第三个任期以来，他对“极端”情景的警告愈发严厉。在对中国国家安全部门的讲话中，他曾多次提到“在极端情况下确保国民经济正常运转”。这究竟意味着什么？这位最高领导人一如既往地含糊其辞，但这暗示着他担心中国有朝一日会与世界其他地区隔绝。“我们必须做好应对最坏情况和极端情景的准备，”习近平在2023年表示，“要做好经受住强风、巨浪乃至危险风暴等重大考验的准备。”因此，他身边聚集了一批来自航空航天和国防机构的高管。在我看来，他的目的是将中国打造成一座坚固的堡垒。
First, that if China’s population growth was left unchecked (at the rate of 3.0 children per woman), then the country would have three billion people by 2050 and over four billion by 2080.
习近平究竟在为怎样的危险风暴做准备？很可能是与西方的全面冲突。在他的领导下，这个工程国家正大力加强自身防御，以应对可能爆发的战争。
习近平已经筑起了更高的围墙。2018年，我住在香港的时候，就开始跟人说，中国可能会在四十年后，也就是中华人民共和国成立一百周年之际，关闭国门。到那时，它将再次成为天朝，人民将不再受境外蛮夷的侵扰。我的大多数朋友都难以置信，说一个国家一旦全球化，就不可能再关闭国门。结果证明，我的预测只差了一个世纪：2021年，也就是共产党成立一百周年之际，中国实际上已经基本处于封闭状态。新冠疫情……就像一次演练——一次模拟中国闭关锁国后生活状况的演练。习近平显然对演练结果很满意。疫情之后，习近平更加强调自力更生。
Second, China’s natural resources implied an optimal population size. Song had plugged different variables into his systems analysis calculations: acreages of China’s arable land; the amount of water; long-term trends in the expected growth of agriculture, industry, and services. The model’s results concluded that China’s optimal population was no more than seven hundred million.
近年来，令我感到惊讶的一件事是，许多曾经经常去中国的美国人现在都不愿意去了。这些人包括熟悉中国的商人、投资者和学者。他们中的许多人真切地感受到，一旦入境就无法离开。我相信大多数人其实不必担心。但在中国扣押两名加拿大人质，以及因商业纠纷或毒品指控对众多外国公民实施出境禁令之后，这种担忧很难消除。即使是那些不担心被拘留的人，也抱怨他们的数字生活被切断。如果没有VPN，前往中国的美国人将很难与国内的家人联系（因为许多即时通讯和电子邮件应用程序都被屏蔽），很难浏览《纽约时报》或《华尔街日报》的新闻头条，而且如果没有中国支付应用程序，在城市里出行也会非常困难。
新冠疫情“清零”政策结束后，我只回过中国一次。到了2024年底，这个国家比疫情前更像一座堡垒。上海异常沉寂，餐厅的客人寥寥无几，商业区也失去了往日的活力。消费者的购买力明显下降。自2022年疫情管控措施解除后，经济未能迅速复苏，人们一直深感经济的不确定性。目前在华美国留学生仅有约一千人，这对于中美关系的未来而言并非好兆头。而疫情前，这个数字是现在的十倍。
Today, these propositions read as bunk. Everything about them was flawed. Song wrote, “China’s population by the second half of the next century would go up to 4.5 billion, equaling the total world population today. And it would continue to grow forever.” Only an engineer might have believed in this sort of straight-line analysis, as if population can grow at an unvarying rate. Song had no awareness that fertility rates might fall as economic growth and educational levels rise—as neighboring East Asian countries had already realized. He presumed that China had a fixed stock of resources, leaving no room for the possibility that technological change, or Deng’s pivot away from the planned economy, could increase agricultural productivity. Ironically, this mechanistic thinking made Song a bad cybernetician because his model failed to be dynamic to feedback.
中国一直在远离西方。2012年，中共选举习近平为总书记时，党做出了一个重要决定：中国不会试图成为像美国一样的国家。此前几年始于华尔街的金融危机令中国领导人感到不安。中国真的会采用如此不稳定的体制吗？大约在同一时期，他们解决了关于宪政的争论。此前，一些中国法学家试图提出共产党应受法律约束的观点。律师们在保护个人自由方面取得了显著胜利，并因此获得了国内媒体的广泛关注。但随后，这些胜利逐渐减少。中国最高人民法院院长公开谴责司法独立，这一举动将党置于法律之上。事后看来，习近平的当选显然是共产党为避免重蹈美国覆辙而制定的路线的一部分。
In any other setting, these calculations might have been brushed aside as an unserious exercise. But the time was the 1970s, when China’s top leadership didn’t need foreigners to tell them that the country was facing economic stresses. The place was Beijing, where Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun imagined that the Four Modernizations would save China, if only it followed the science. And the scientist was Song Jian, who was known and trusted by the political establishment. When Song assured China’s leadership that population trajectories could be as firmly controlled as missile trajectories, they listened.
中国经济步履蹒跚，中央政府的压制力度也日益加强。中国面临着债务问题、与西方国家敌对的外交关系以及人口下降等诸多挑战——而人口下降问题早在许多人试图移民之前就已存在。所有这一切都因一个难以预测的政治因素而雪上加霜：年迈的独裁者很容易变得脾气暴躁，而习近平很可能执政到八十多岁，这无疑是个问题。
The anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh traced Song’s influence on the one-child policy in her remarkable book Just One Child. During policy conferences, Song and his team of elite scientists made their case with calculations from China’s most sophisticated computers. Skeptics of a one-child policy were making population projections with the aid of an abacus or a handheld calculator. Song Jian presented his group’s projections in precise, machine-generated lines on graph paper; other groups drew uneven squiggles by hand. It was never a fair fight. The military scientists outclassed their intellectual opponents in every possible way.
亚洲世纪还在继续吗？关乎亚洲未来的问题远比谁“胜出”更加微妙也更有趣。尽管我不认为中国会真正超越美国成为全球强国，但它仍然构成巨大的挑战。
China would probably have imposed radical population controls with or without Song Jian. At the end of the 1970s, its leaders thought some form of control was necessary. Song made the scientific case that China could permit couples to have no more than one child. A few groups had murmured objections: local party secretaries who understood it would be intolerable to rural folks; social scientists who pointed out how it would create problems for retirement; and the army, which worried about recruitment.
中国工程技术实力依然强大。尽管习近平越来越倾向于为了国家安全而忽视经济增长，但这并不意味着中国已经变成了朝鲜。中国企业依然在一个充满活力的商业环境中运营，尽管这个环境无疑更加受限。中国与西方的关系不再那么友好，但贸易和教育交流依然存在。中国仍然是一个巨大的市场，拥有大量渴望有所作为的雄心勃勃的人才。只不过，如今的中国正努力将自己与动荡不安、充满冲突的世界隔离开来。
They lost. On Song’s side was the formidable Chen Yun, who pushed hard for a one-child policy. The rest of the leadership mostly agreed as well. Only a few policymakers wondered whether it might not be better to permit two children per couple and whether education and greater contraceptive access might not be sufficient. Deng Xiaoping’s decisive voice weighed in favor of only one child. He and Chen Yun were seasoned administrators who had an intuitive understanding that targeting one child provided simplicity to the millions of local officials responsible for enforcing the rule. Song Jian pushed on an open door. His projections allowed them to believe that the crudest goal was also the most necessary.
中国在工程技术方面仍然拥有诸多优势。但有一点我自2017年以来始终未变：我比以往任何时候都更加确信，中国将成为制造业的技术领导者。
Beijing adopted the one-child policy in 1980.
马克思主义者喜欢探究矛盾之处。中国面临的核心矛盾是什么？我认为，我们在解读新闻标题时必须调和两种现实。首先，富人、有创造力的人以及走投无路的人选择逃离习近平第三个任期内弥漫的经济和政治阴霾。其次，制造业在掌握电动汽车、清洁技术和其他先进技术方面持续蓬勃发展。
Song’s authority fit with Deng’s goals to cast his new policies as a modernizing, scientific force, with the precisely drawn graphs to prove it. Deng and Chen Yun were starting to think about China’s growth in per-capita terms, which pushed them into the faulty line of thinking that resources per person were higher when there were fewer people. Years later, Song gloated about how much smarter natural scientists were than social scientists. His strategy, if he were ever attacked, was to “withdraw into the sanctuary with the high prestige of natural science.” Song never stopped congratulating himself. In a 1988 book, Population Systems Control, he and a coauthor wrote, “Using statistical and quantitative research methodologies, population studies have been freed from the interference of human emotions and the damaging effect of popular ethics.”
如何才能调和它们？通过工程国家的概念。
The Communist Party, however, could not fully ignore human emotions and popular ethics. It knew that the people would react to this policy with incredulity. In an approach almost without precedent, the Communist Party published an open letter addressed to all members, asking them to set the example of having only one child. According to Greenhalgh, the propaganda authorities gave Song Jian the honor of writing the first draft. The result went as well as could be expected. Song was too arrogant to address the people with tactfulness, so officials threw out his draft and gave the task to propaganda professionals.
工程师们对经济和社会进行的鲁莽干预，令许多人深感不满，促使他们将财富或自身转移到国外。与此同时，中国正致力于打造一个科技强国。我认为，中国或许能够成功。但我的看法是，习近平的更大野心——即推动中国取代美国成为世界首屈一指的国家（衡量标准不仅包括经济规模，还包括外交影响力、文化产出和国家声望）——恐怕难以实现。工程师们的控制欲是制约中国实力发展的根本因素。但这也将推动中国成为一个先进制造业国家，在21世纪的众多高科技供应链中占据主导地位，并拥有与之相匹配的军事实力，从而有很大机会挑战美国在亚洲的霸权地位。
The open letter of 1,600 words was published in the People’s Daily that September. “In order to keep China’s population below 1.2 billion by the end of this century,” it began, “the State Council has issued a call to the people of the whole country, advocating that each couple should have only one child. This is a major measure related to the Four Modernizations, to the health and happiness of future generations, and to the long-term and present interests of all the people. The Central Committee requires all Communist Party members to take the lead . . . to actively, responsibly, patiently, and meticulously carry out publicity and education to the masses.”
工程师有很多缺点。例如，他们不太擅长创作吸引人的文化产品。
This letter adopted a plaintive tone. It “advocated” for couples to have only one child. It took pains to sound reasonable, citing the stagnation of living standards and the stress that the population was putting on farmland. Even today, the name of the policy barely evokes the violence involved with its implementation, in which posses of enforcers reached their hands into a woman’s most intimate parts in order to carry out, at times, forced sterilizations and abortions. Enactment of the one-child policy meant forcing a mostly rural people to change deeply ingrained habits. It was social and population engineering at scale.
在疫情高峰期，习近平宣称中国需要变得更加“可爱”。当时，世界各地的人们都指责中国是病毒传播的罪魁祸首，中国的国际形象因此受损。但中国面临的问题远比疫情更为根本。过去四十年来，工程技术国家在创造世界其他地区所欣赏的文化产品方面做得非常糟糕。
The one-child policy began as a shock campaign and matured into a labyrinthine administrative apparatus. Over the thirty-five years of the policy’s existence, it left few Chinese families untouched. By 1990, in order to have a first child, a woman needed up to twelve documents from her workplace and various party officials and a consent form agreeing to contraceptive measures after birth. The less fortunate were caught in the mass sterilization and abortion campaigns that swept through the countryside. For rural families describing what it was like to live through those times, “wrenching” becomes the descriptor of first resort.
我经常问美国人喜欢哪些中国文化产品。即使是见多识广的人，也需要花点时间思考一下。不妨仔细想想。答案往往比较小众。有人会提到张艺谋的电影，比如他执导的《大红灯笼高高挂》，而更偏爱艺术电影的人则会提到贾樟柯。科幻迷可能会提到刘慈欣的《三体》。TikTok或许也是一个答案，但我不太确定它是否算数，因为这款应用在海外并不常推送中国内容。现代艺术收藏家和电子游戏玩家的回答则往往更多。总的来说，大多数美国人并不会主动去寻找来自中国的音乐、艺术、电影或文学作品。
Beijing designated Qian Xinzhong, a former general of the People’s Liberation Army, to be the head of the State Family Planning Commission. Qian planned the opening phase of the enforcement as carefully as a military campaign. He called on roving teams of family planning officers to be “shock brigades” who must implement “man-on-man tactics” in the great battle for family planning. Crucial in his conception was the “shock attack,” a term from socialist campaigns emphasizing political mobilization to achieve decisive results. These teams consisted of state and party cadres, local enforcers, and a medical team that would traverse villages. Hospitals had to be prepared to carry out the “four procedures”: IUD insertions, tubal ligations, vasectomies, and abortions.
我认为这并非出于偏见。美国人一直以来都欣然接受东亚的文化产品。日本曾掀起一股流行文化浪潮，其中包括动漫、漫画、诺贝尔文学奖得主以及索尼随身听和任天堂Gameboy等热门消费品。韩国也持续推出热门作品，无论是流行乐队还是像《寄生虫》或《鱿鱼游戏》这样的热门影视作品。中国年轻人观看韩剧或好莱坞电影的概率，与观看国产电影的概率不相上下。
Qian threw these shock troops against the bewildered masses of China’s rural folk. When the one-child policy started in 1980, urban fertility rates were already trending toward 1.0 child per couple, while rural fertility was closer to 2.5. For the four-fifths of Chinese who lived in the countryside, having several children was the basis of economic security. Without multiple children, and ideally sons, a farmer couldn’t count on having enough work and old-age support.
中国开放四十年后，其对全球文化的贡献大多局限于艺术领域的边缘地带。这是因为工程师们不懂得如何说服他人。共产党坚持一种历史观，即党永远正确，所有错误都源于叛徒或外国人。与其承认错误并讲述令人信服的故事，这个以工程技术为主导的国家本能地选择审查其他叙事。习近平给人的感觉是过于渴望获得世界其他国家的卑躬屈膝的尊重，而这恰恰是他永远无法获得这种尊重的原因。
In 1982, China was finally organized enough to undertake its first census since 1964. Deng and Chen regarded the results with glumness. China’s population increased by three hundred million in those eighteen years, becoming the first country ever to surpass one billion people. The leadership felt even more convinced of the need for population control. The Communist Party had declared family planning a “foundational national policy” and wrote it into the constitution, removing it from the realm of debate and empowering Qian’s most ruthless instincts.
问题不在于中国人缺乏想象力，而在于国家机器的严苛干预扼杀了他们的创造力。众所周知，中国孩子极富创造力，完全有能力创造一股令人喜爱的文化浪潮，只是他们不得不面对严苛的审查制度。2023年，北京一位脱口秀演员用一句军事口号作为笑点，结果遭到审查，喜剧行业遭受重创。这位名叫李昊石的喜剧演员被拘留，社交媒体账号被封禁，他所在的喜剧工作室被罚款200万美元。喜剧团体必须在演出前几周将剧本提交给审查机构，结果全国各地的演出都被取消。此后数月，上海各地的喜剧俱乐部也被迫关闭。
In 1983, Qian mobilized party and state offices at every level for a big push. That year, the state sterilized sixteen million women and carried out fourteen million abortions. By comparison, in the pre-policy year of 1975, the state performed only three million sterilizations and five million abortions.
工程师们开不起玩笑。在政治偏执和社会管控的氛围下，艺术很难蓬勃发展。如今，中国艺术家和作家必须遵循社会主义核心价值观，而这些价值观容不得丝毫政治批判的痕迹。导演们发现自己的电影莫名其妙地被影院或国际电影节撤档。国内上映的大部分电影都是民族主义大片、煽情爱情片或超自然动作片。难怪这些电影无法出口。即使在被困的中国观众中，它们也未必受欢迎。
Hitting these numbers required escalating coercive tactics. The first measure in the official toolbox was browbeating. Local officials would visit pregnant women as part of “persuasion groups.” This posse of up to ten men seldom appeared as sweet-tongued advocates. One American academic witnessed a group of women in Guangdong separated from their husbands and sent to the village hall. There, they were given unceasing lectures to give up their pregnancy for the good of the country, and then were called upon one by one to give their consent to an abortion while being prohibited from returning home until they had done so. A 1982 New York Times report quoted a family planning official from Guangdong saying, “On average, each person takes 10 times to be persuaded. The most difficult person can take up to 100 times.” The piece also cites women hauled before mass rallies and harangued into consenting to an abortion.
中共中央宣传部对待媒体就像对待精心修剪的花园一样。它筑起高墙，屏蔽了大量外国内容，封锁了维基百科、社交媒体和许多新闻网站。每年只有极少数好莱坞电影获准在国内影院上映。艺术家们深知，他们必须修改作品以符合政治敏感性，否则就会被噤声。宣传部门不遗余力地强化官方声音。走进中国的任何一家书店，你很可能会在入口处的桌子上看到一排整齐排列（且几乎全新）的习近平文集。走进任何一家博物馆，你都可能发现墙上贴着他的一句名言，与任何展览都毫无关联。即使是那些并非由国家运营的聚合网站，包括……字节跳动总是把显眼的位置留给宣传机构发布的信息。
Slogans exhorted cadres not to slacken their work. “Any method that reduces fertility is a good method,” said one. “Take all measures and overcome difficulties with creativity,” said another. These were tantamount to offering open license to take any means necessary to terminate a woman’s pregnancy. The browbeating often worked: Few families could endure up to a hundred visits by a rotating cast of officials with ever more insistent demands. But if the tactics still were ineffective, the officials could threaten firing or fines worth up to several years of wages. They could detain the woman or a family member, which required paying for one’s food each day without being able to contact the outside world. Sometimes they carted off furniture or sewing machines, seized cattle and other livestock, or sent a bulldozer to tear the roof off their home. A family that thought it had the means to support an additional child then had to ponder whether it still could do so.
工程师们的控制欲也阻碍了大国另一项特征的实现：全球货币。美元是世界上绝对主导的货币，而人民币仅占全球支付的3%。过去十年，人民币的份额几乎没有增长。北京实施了严格的资本管制，以防止资金轻易外流，这有望为中国高杠杆的金融体系带来更大的稳定性。然而，这些限制恰恰是全球金融机构所不齿的。只要北京坚持资本管制，世界其他国家对人民币的需求就会受到限制。
Nothing was more important than hitting numerical quotas. Local officials received cash bonuses and good reviews if they met their sterilization and abortion quotas; if they did not, they saw their pay docked and were demoted. Enforcing family planning was part of an official’s personnel evaluation. Nicholas Kristof, then a reporter based in China, wrote about a woman who was seven months pregnant when officials demanded that she give birth right away. These officials formed a shock brigade to round up all third-trimester women because they had some birth quotas left in the year, while they weren’t sure whether they would have many next year. Against the objections of the woman’s doctors, they induced an early birth. Kristof described how she nearly hemorrhaged to death during the birth. Her child died. And this mother-to-be was left physically disabled.
中国的崛起之路因诸多原因而步履蹒跚，但有一件事它始终保持着优势。工程师们喜欢做什么？建造。这为中国国内带来了巨大的经济效益，使全国各地，甚至包括非常贫困的省份，都受益匪浅。它还有助于增强整个经济的粮食和能源韧性。中国这个工程强国仍在朝着成为先进制造业强国的目标稳步迈进，并有望主导21世纪的大部分科技供应链。而对建造的重视也为中国赢得了发展中国家的一定支持。
If a woman was still not persuaded, then officials might carry out a forced abortion. Often, they operated in the third trimester because the woman could no longer conceal her big belly. In some cases, a baby came out alive. Michael Weisskopf, who reported on the one-child policy in a series of pieces for the Washington Post in 1985, wrote that doctors sometimes injected formaldehyde into a baby’s head or crushed the skull with forceps. More typically, doctors would smother the newborn or leave it to die of exposure.
出口中国的基础设施是“一带一路”倡议的核心，而“一带一路”正是习近平主席的标志性倡议之一。中国企业已将其在道路、桥梁、铁路、隧道、水坝和电厂建设方面的专业技术带到海外。有时，它们还会带来一些监控系统和审查工具，这些工具在专制领导人中很受欢迎。中国在海外大举投资，在150个国家拥有总额达1万亿美元的未偿贷款。中国为东南亚的铁路、欧洲的港口、非洲的轻轨、道路、桥梁、图书馆、体育场馆以及其他许多项目提供融资。据德勤称，中国已成为全球最大的基础设施出口国。非洲最大的基础设施融资方，承建了非洲大陆四分之一的项目。
Song Jian’s home province of Shandong experienced the most notorious incident of strict enforcement. Zeng Zhaoqi, newly appointed party secretary of Guan County, was humiliated that it ranked last in the province for family planning. So he summoned the twenty-two most senior party officials one day in April, berating them for their failings and shouting that their measures must be more extraordinary. He demanded there be zero births in the county between May 1 to August 10. In reports now censored, residents said that every woman was forced to have an abortion, no matter how far she was into her pregnancy or whether it had been authorized. Zeng found toughs from other counties—since locals were reluctant to hurt their own—to halt births.
“一带一路”倡议的成效喜忧参半。一些基础设施项目巩固了中国作为贸易枢纽的地位：例如，中国与邻国老挝之间的高铁促进了出口和投资。但即使是中国建筑公司，在海外建设时也难免出现成本超支和工期延误的情况。“一带一路”的旗舰项目之一是连接印尼首都雅加达和万隆的高速铁路。尽管这条铁路客流量很高，但中国建筑商的预算超支了10亿美元，工期也延误了四年。当地居民抱怨说，“一带一路”项目往往全部从中国引进劳动力。一些签署该倡议的国家后来退出了，其中最引人注目的是意大利。两张照片在中国互联网上流传：一张是2017年“一带一路”国际合作高峰论坛的照片，当时习近平主席被120位世界领导人簇拥着；另一张是2023年同一论坛的照片，当时只有30多位领导人出席。
This incident in Guan County is known by two names: the “childless hundred days” as well as the “slaughter of the lambs,” since 1991 was the year of the sheep in the Chinese zodiac. The slaughter ended well for Zeng. He was rewarded with successively more desirable promotions in Shandong. His superiors didn’t seem to have a sense of irony when they appointed him later to be the deputy head of the provincial committee on Caring for Future Generations.
即使中国建筑公司并非始终尊重外籍工人及当地环境，即使一些“一带一路”沿线国家呼吁北京免除债务，但总体而言，这对中国来说似乎仍然是利大于弊的。从狭义的财务角度来看，世界银行在2024年发现，“一带一路”项目为中国贷款方带来了正回报，尽管回报额较小。中国在亟需基础设施的国家建设了实用基础设施。因此，发展中国家总体上比美国和欧洲国家对中国抱有更高的好感也就不足为奇了。
Though Qian Xinzhong didn’t hesitate to order late-term abortions, his preferred tool was sterilization. Abortions were messy and traumatic for all; sterilization was simpler to carry out and could represent a decisive solution. Doctors might automatically implant an IUD immediately after a birth, sometimes without bothering to inform the patient. Since women attempted to remove these implanted rings, Qian preferred tubal ligation—an irreversible procedure. He advocated for universal sterilization of couples who already had two children. That wasn’t implemented everywhere, although there are reports of maternity wards sterilizing mothers immediately after a second birth. Automatic sterilization was a step that provoked unease in Beijing. Since infant mortality was still high, rural families feared the permanent loss of the ability to have a child. But by 1999, China’s health ministry statistics show that 35 percent of married women of reproductive age had been sterilized.
因此，中国的战略一直是试图争取其他发展中国家的支持。支持者会说，发展中国家人口比西方多出数十亿，经济增长率也高于美国和欧洲，中国或许并不需要与西方保持密切关系，这些说法固然没错。但非洲、东南亚和拉丁美洲的消费者购买力远不及欧洲人。中国企业在这些地区将面临更大的挑战。当中国企业被禁止向更富裕的消费者销售产品，从而无法获得与现有企业竞争所需的利润时，它们反而成为了全球领导者。与此同时，外交关系很少一帆风顺，因为发展中国家的制造商也受到了中国出口的冲击。巴西、印度、印度尼西亚和南非的官员都曾呼吁北京建立更加平衡的贸易关系。
The campaign produced agony for rural folks. They fumed that the state was treating them exactly as they dealt with their own livestock. Wives and daughters were being sterilized in much the same way that farmers spayed their pigs. It didn’t help that the abortion posses sometimes literally carted women off in hog cages. Weisskopf wrote in the Washington Post, “Expectant mothers, including many in their last trimester, were trussed, handcuffed, herded into hog cages and delivered by the truckload to the operating tables of rural clinics.” The toll on women’s bodies was enormous. The stainless-steel IUD rings inserted after births created long-term physical problems, provoked menstrual bleeding, and tended to wear out after two years. Abortions and invasive tubal ligations were often done in a hurry and en masse, sometimes without anesthetic. Men could have volunteered for vasectomies. But typically, four women received a tubal ligation for every vasectomy.
工程师们还有一项特别擅长的技能：增强经济的韧性。中国并没有追求效率和准时交付，而是投资于冗余系统和冲击缓冲机制。
The one-child policy didn’t create so much difficulty in urban areas. Many people in cities were able to navigate the situation. They were also more likely to have the means to travel abroad to have a second birth. And the party trod cautiously in restive minority regions, since problems associated with overpopulation were caused by the majority Han settlers in Tibet or Xinjiang, not by the locals. Sometimes, villagers were able to pay the fine for an additional child and get on with their lives. A bribe could do the trick. Local officials had an interest, after all, in concealment, protecting both themselves and their villagers.
中国高度重视能源安全。其在建设低碳能源——太阳能、风能和核能——方面所付出的巨大努力，必须从更广泛的层面来理解，那就是使国家能源依赖本土资源。北京试图减轻一旦失去石油运输海上通道所带来的冲击。这也是为什么2023年中国新增燃煤发电装机容量是世界其他地区总和的20倍。中国确实认真对待气候变化问题，但北京并没有放弃其丰富的煤炭储备。这也解释了为什么中国如此热衷于汽车电气化：它宁愿燃烧国产煤炭，也不愿使用中东石油来驱动汽车。
When people needed to resist the onslaught, they wielded what James C. Scott called weapons of the weak. The most straightforward means of resistance was to escape to a different village. A mother might return with a newborn and hope for leniency with a fait accompli. But it was a risky strategy to produce an out-of-plan child. Many jurisdictions did not allow them to have the schooling or medical benefits available to an authorized birth. It meant they might miss early inoculations, be barred from school enrollment, and experience forfeiture of their land rights. They were essentially second- or third-class citizens whose most likely fate was to become unskilled migrants.
中国也高度重视粮食安全。习近平主席曾多次站在麦田中央，发表亲切的讲话，例如：“中国人民的碗里应该盛满中国粮食。”新冠疫情和俄罗斯入侵乌克兰事件让北京更加重视粮食自给自足。中国领导人一直深知粮食短缺曾导致王朝覆灭。因此，省长考核的一项重要内容就是稻米和小麦的自给自足能力，而主要城市的市长则必须确保本地种植多种粮食。市长的考核指标之一是……他们将土地用于种植蔬菜，并确保大多数居民步行即可到达食品市场，确保没有食品安全丑闻，并确保价格稳定。
Women tried to time their pregnancies so that they would give birth in winter, when they could bury their growing belly under layers of heavier clothing. Officials knew they were not detecting all the pregnancies, so they offered financial rewards for neighbors to snitch. Since China’s minority groups enjoyed some leniency to have more than one child, people discovered Tibetan, Dai, Miao, or some other such ancestry that they had previously forgotten to disclose to authorities. After Beijing loosened the policy permitting families to have a second child if their first was disabled, the writer Peter Hessler discussed the story of a family that rented a disabled child they claimed was theirs in their application for a second birth permit (which was successful).
从北京搭乘高铁，很快就能抵达农田。驱车环游上海郊区，你会发现大片温室大棚，蔬菜遍地。习近平发表讲话后，近年来中国一直在努力开垦盐沼，并将废弃矿山改造成农田，尽管这些农田的生产力可能并不高。不过，我不介意中国拆除那些对环境造成浪费的高尔夫球场，并将土地分配给农民。
Confronting birth-planning officials was a tactic of last resort. Rural folks said these officials were after only three things: your money (through fines), your grain, or your life. Enraged villagers sometimes retaliated against officials by destroying their homes or livestock. Kidnapping the children of shock brigade leaders became a common fantasy, sometimes executed. Arson was such a common revenge that cadres developed a phobia of fire: Ten days after one person was promoted a “tubal ligation team leader,” his home was razed to the ground. Attacks against birth-planning officials became so frequent that some areas drew up laws specifically to prohibit retaliation: Shaanxi, for example, passed a law against “insulting, injuring, or slandering birth planning personnel or their families.” The government eventually came up with a special insurance scheme for covering accidents and damage to the homes of birth-planning officers.
这种自给自足的代价是，城市周边大量宝贵的土地被用于农业，而这些地区并非总是适宜种植作物。更重要的是，中国的大部分劳动力仍然留在农村：尽管过去几十年中国经历了快速的城市化进程，但其农村人口比例仍然是美国的两倍。好处是，在新冠疫情期间，中国并未遭受严重的粮食短缺。即使在封锁最严重的城市——武汉、西安和上海——周边的农田和温室也在生产粮食，但由于物流系统不堪重负，无法将粮食送到每一位居民手中。相比之下，中国的粮食系统提供了相对稳定的生产，而美国低收入人群的粮食安全问题在2020年疫情初期急剧恶化。肉类和蔬菜的生产集中在相对少数的地区。当美国中西部屠宰场的工人感染病毒时，东海岸的杂货店牛肉供应短缺。
They became some of the most hated people in Chinese officialdom, but these enforcers had little autonomy and few privileges. Only half had completed high school, and only one in eight received any medical training, even though many of them were thrown into doing invasive procedures. Most were poorly paid and developed poor morale from being treated with contempt by other officials while they implemented the one-child policy. In three separate state surveys, more than half of birth-planning officials expressed a desire to quit their work.
疫情期间，美国短缺的商品不仅限于食品。许多不同种类的商品都难以找到：家具、半导体、个人防护装备等等。中国政府和中国企业通常会储备更多种类的商品，因此具有更强的抗风险能力。而美国企业界的信条是“库存是罪恶的”。产能过剩虽然会损害中国企业（尤其是国有企业）的各项盈利指标，但它们也使它们能够在任何危机中迅速采取行动。如果再次发生疫情或战争，充足的制造业和食品产能将非常有用。
The zenith of the one-child policy was Qian’s big push of 1983. Later that year, he lost his job. Beijing then loosened the policy slightly, releasing new guidelines to repudiate shock tactics and permitting more couples to have a second child, especially people in rural areas. The brutality, however, continued. China’s health yearbooks reveal another high tide of sterilizations and abortions in 1991, the year of the mass slaughter in Shandong’s Guan County, as a large cohort of women entered childbearing age. After that, however, the one-child policy became less confrontational, although sterilizations and abortions remained at high levels.
工程型国家最重要的任务是发展制造业。尽管中国面临诸多挑战，但它仍在不断巩固其在众多技术密集型产业以及军事领域的地位。即便美国在外交、金融和创新方面能够超越中国，但如果美国无法在物质世界制造任何东西，那么这两个大国之间的竞争也将十分胶着。
For more than a decade, the one-child policy produced a campaign of rural terror. Local officials had to convince people they were serious about changing birth habits. Documentation from that time, occasionally surfacing even in state media, reports forced sterilizations and abortions, as well as public incidents of drowning newborns to make people realize that the state and its one-child policy meant business. The state was trying to enact compliance by changing cultural attitudes.
中国经济最强劲的动力源于其根深蒂固的技术工人队伍，他们掌握着我在第三章“技术实力”中提到的工艺知识。尽管中国经济的50%可能运转不良，但仍有5%的行业表现出色（这个估算数据来自《华尔街日报》的格雷格·伊普）。这5%对美国的利益构成威胁：它代表着中国的制造业能力，正在蚕食美国的工业基础。
One of the notorious legacies of the one-child policy was the high rate of female infanticide. Rural families tended to have two preferences: to have multiple children, and that at least one should be a boy. The one-child policy collapsed these desires into a preference for sons. Reports of female infanticide poured into government offices. Baby girls were being smothered, drowned, poisoned, or left in trash heaps as soon as they were born. “At present, the phenomena of butchering, drowning and leaving to die female infants and maltreating women who have given birth to female infants have been very serious,” state media forlornly admitted. “It has become a grave social problem.” By the early 1990s, ultrasound machines were in widespread use, permitting parents to engage in sex-selective abortions. That meant fewer killings after birth. But it didn’t stop China’s official sex ratio at birth to reach 120 boys born for every 100 girls in 1999. That ratio has since declined to 111 boys to 100 girls. In the intervening decades, however, demographers estimate that around forty million women are “missing.”
请记住，中国企业在清洁技术供应链的许多环节占据绝对主导地位，尤其是在太阳能和电池领域。他们仍在向世界各地出口电动汽车（尽管其中许多出口产品是特斯拉等外国公司的产品）。他们在各种先进制造业领域都取得了显著进展，例如消费级无人机、工业机器人和钢压机。中国在半导体和航空领域仍然落后，但它已在这些领域建立了供应链，并决心迎头赶上。中国取得这些成就的许多基础工作是在习近平上任之前就已奠定的。这些充满活力的技术生产生态系统由设计师、工程师和技术人员组成，他们每天聚在一起解决各种技术难题。问题。他们的生活并不一定取决于北京或华盛顿特区的政策发展。
Not every family had the heart to give up their newborn daughters. Kay Ann Johnson was a professor from Massachusetts doing fieldwork in northern China when she adopted a three-month-old girl. Two decades later, she wrote a moving book, China’s Hidden Children, in part, as she put it, to help Chinese children who were adopted abroad understand the impossible circumstances of their birth parents. It dawns on some out-of-plan or adopted children to say, as early as age three, “I should never have been born” when they learn of their own legal discrimination or abandonment. In scores of interviews, Johnson found that rural families, including the father, experienced lasting emotional scars from anguish and rage that they could not keep their child. They felt that they had no choice in the matter. But they also suffered a deep sense of loss and personal failure.
这还关乎人。中国约有1亿人从事制造业。诚然，中国人口正在下降，但重要的是要记住，只有一小部分劳动力从事技术生产。德国和日本都是出口大国，分别拥有800万和1000万制造业工人。一个国家并不需要那么多人才能拥有强大的半导体产业：几十万训练有素的工人就足够了。到2025年，中国STEM领域博士毕业生的数量将是美国的两倍多——而且美国大学里有很多博士是中国公民，他们很可能会回国。
When birth parents abandoned (almost invariably) their baby girl, they tried to find a good adoptive family, usually a childless couple or a family already with multiple boys. After depositing the girl at the doorstep, they might set off some firecrackers for attention. Anyone emerging out of their doorway would glance down at a newborn and immediately understand the task asked of them. If birth parents couldn’t identify a good family, they might abandon the girl in the city, reluctantly, since they had little idea who might pick up their child. It became a common story for city folks to hear a baby’s cries from inside a cardboard box or by a trash heap.
让中国成为科技强国已成为习近平第三个任期的首要任务。他在第一任期之初就谈到过这一点，当时他指出，中国历史上最大的问题是科技落后。在习近平看来，中国无法跟上现代化的步伐，就像清朝在“西方战舰和大炮”的围攻下内部腐朽一样。随后，他的政府宣布了“中国制造2025”计划，这是一项旨在主导十大科技产业的宏伟计划。2023年，北京宣布成立一个新的高级别机构：中央科学技术委员会。次年，习近平宣布中国必须在2035年之前建成“科技超级大国”。
The one-child policy increased child abandonments and child abductions. Trafficking rings stepped up to mediate between families who could not keep their child and families who wanted another. Sometimes, they abducted girls to fulfill demand for future brides; most of the time, they abducted boys because more families wanted sons. Child smuggling became an interprovincial venture. In 2004, twenty-four baby girls in tote bags were found on a long-distance bus, drugged to keep them quiet, bound for adoptive families. That led to the bust of a large baby-trafficking ring whose leaders were sentenced to death. Police raids to rescue trafficked children continued for much of the 2000s.
2024年科技部的一篇评论指出：“国家实力的竞争本质上是一场科技创新的较量，最终将证明哪种政治制度更为优越。” 这是一种奇怪的论断，暗示着评判一个国家是否应该以其创造更好的经济成果、促进更广阔的审美或智力发展，或者提升民众的整体福祉为标准。在上一次冷战中，美国和苏联就更广泛的成功标准展开了争论。在习近平的中国，精英阶层——呼应了产业党的信念——谁能在科学技术领域做得更好，谁就决定一切。
Johnson recounted several instances of forcible seizure of children by the state. In one account, seven men descended from several directions on the home of a family with an out-of-plan child: “The government had taken their baby, stripped them of their parental rights, and left them heartbroken and powerless to do anything about it,” Johnson wrote. “It had been nothing short of a kidnapping by the government, leaving them no recourse.”
从某种程度上说，美国加速了中国在科技领域的进步。唐纳德·特朗普在其第一任期内，对中国出口商发动了贸易战，并对中国龙头企业发动了技术战。他的政府将华为、无人机制造商大疆创新、芯片巨头中芯国际等中国科技巨头列入不透明的制裁名单，严重限制了它们获取美国技术的能力。一些公司甚至被逼到了破产的边缘。与此同时，特朗普领导下的司法部将科学家（其中大部分是华裔）置于美国刑事司法系统的“温柔”之下，而他们通常面临的指控只是涉及科研诚信的轻微问题。乔·拜登则扩大了技术管制范围，要求所有先进芯片和芯片制造设备在出口到中国之前都必须获得美国政府的批准。
State-enacted kidnapping was one of the perverse consequences of the one-child policy. China started sending children abroad starting in the early 1990s. Adoption agencies sprang up for American families who went to China to bring home a child. Though the process of vetting foreign parents was rigorous, the procedures for making babies available to them was not always transparent. Orphanages didn’t always treat children well: One American on an adoption trip to Wuhan wrote that a family on his trip received two successive notices that their designated adoptee had died. International conventions agreed to by Beijing required adoptive parents to offer a donation. The size of the required donation was between $3,000 and $5,500, which was an enormous sum for any Chinese orphanage. That created a perception that orphanages were in the business of selling children abroad. This label was often not fair. Unfortunately, local governments sometimes really sought to benefit from these big payments.
我花了数年时间追踪报道这些技术限制的曲折变化。随着时间的推移，我越来越觉得美国为了拯救本国的科学和工业体系，不惜采取摧毁它们的策略——通过起诉科学家和切断芯片制造商的销售渠道。美国非但没有实现自己的“斯普特尼克时刻”，反而促成了中国的一个“斯普特尼克时刻”。
Hunan, Mao’s birthplace and the province where many of the worst abuses of the one-child policy have been reported, distinguished itself on excess. Parents in rural Longhui County reportedly grabbed their babies to find hiding places whenever family planning officers showed up. Officers snatched at least sixteen children who didn’t have proper papers and placed them in orphanages. Eventually, a few ended up in the United States, Poland, and Holland. Longhui residents have accused the government of abducting their children for revenue, raising the horrifying possibility that American adoptive families may have taken in children who weren’t actually abandoned.
中国科技巨头一直以来都购买美国芯片，因为他们想要销售具有全球竞争力的产品。他们无视北京要求他们从国内供应商采购的呼吁，原因很简单：中国技术不够先进。但特朗普政府让中国科技巨头们有充分的理由担心被美国技术拒之门外。因此，美国政府彻底引导那些此前不愿发展国内产业基础的中国企业，使其与北京的自给自足战略保持一致。中国最具活力的科技公司过去输送到美国的所有资金和工程人才，如今都留在了国内。
The one-child policy persisted into the era of online virality. In 2012, Feng Jianmei, a twenty-three-year-old mother in rural Shaanxi, was pregnant with a second child. When she failed to pay a fine demanded by birth-planning officials, they shoved her into a van, blindfolded her, made her sign a document she could not see, and gave her shots to induce a stillbirth. That in itself might not have been remarkable. What was unusual was that Feng’s husband uploaded a photo of her—exhausted and with her bloody, stillborn fetus lying beside her—on China’s nascent social media platforms. When the post blew up, younger people reacted with outrage. One commenter stated that the family planning system has been “openly killing people for years in the name of national policy.”
贬低美国公司的可靠性，不仅对中国企业，而且对全世界的企业来说，这样做值得吗？到目前为止，出口限制并未对中国科技公司造成决定性打击，它们找到了在无法完全获得美国芯片的情况下勉强维持运营的方法。即使是遭受美国最严厉限制的华为，仍然在全球范围内销售5G设备，并在国内销售智能手机。有时我认为，美国与中国的科技竞争——特朗普时期混乱的政策制定，拜登时期漏洞百出的执行——最终走向了最糟糕的境地。这些限制措施虽然重创了中国最具活力的公司，但并未扼杀它们，这反而激起了它们挣脱美国限制的决心。
Beijing took too long to end the one-child policy in large part due to bureaucratic inertia. The State Family Planning Commission had over 500,000 workers, 1.2 million local enforcers, and 6 million village officials engaged in enforcement. It collected $200 billion in fines over its lifetime, according to state media. For the millions of people given jobs by this bureaucracy, it was worthwhile to keep the policy from expiring. And the commission kept finding evidence that families were hiding their out-of-plan children. It wasn’t until the 2010 census conclusively proved the fertility rate had collapsed that the central government dissolved the commission.
与此同时，北京正积极投资科技发展。随着银行对房地产项目的贷款大幅减少，资金涌入制造业。北京在一定程度上促成了这一局面。尽管中国流失了一些富有创造力的人才，但却吸引了大量科学家。自2020年以来，许多知名的华裔科学家离开美国，这既是受到中国慷慨科研经费的吸引，也是受到特朗普政府对科研违规行为调查的迫害。 2010年，从美国移居中国的华裔科学家不足1000人；而到了2021年，这一数字超过了2500人。中国媒体对那些从美国顶尖大学来到中国的生物学家或数学家们给予了热烈的欢迎。习近平或许并不介意用心怀不满的年轻人来换取资深科学家。
China ended the one-child policy in a desultory process, formally terminating it after the bureaucracy stopped putting up a fight. The one-child policy became a two-child policy in 2015, then a three-child policy in 2021. Over the thirty-five years of the one-child era, China performed a total of 321 million abortions (not far off from the present population of the United States) and sterilized 108 million women and 26 million men. In 2024, Beijing announced that it would end international adoptions. By that time, more than 150,000 children had been sent abroad (around half to the United States), almost all girls.
在政治环境日益收紧的情况下，科学研究还有可能开展吗？我经常听到的一种说法是，中国无法创新，因为它“没有言论自由”。
As I was writing this chapter in 2024, my wife, Silvia, suffered a miscarriage. It was in the first trimester of our first pregnancy. As we grieved, I returned to writing about these mass sterilization and abortion campaigns. If anything, it became more difficult to imagine how the state dragged away so many women to forced abortions in their third trimester. Meanwhile, women in the United States were fretting about curtailments over their reproductive rights. Neither forced nor prohibited abortions are humane, Silvia and I felt, which means the state should leave families, and especially women, with a choice.
毫无疑问，习近平收紧了中国本已有限的言论自由空间。思想自由对人文和社会科学至关重要。但我并不确定它是否是自然科学的必要条件，尤其是在化学、物理等领域。数学和工程学本质上都具有政治性。历史上许多专制政权都取得了惊人的技术进步。
I was born in 1992. When I spoke to my mom about the one-child era, she remembers the bureaucracy more than anything else. She needed to fill out a lot of forms to have me, including committing to contraceptive measures after my birth. She was surprised when I told her that China recorded the second-highest number of abortions the year before my birth (fourteen million, a few hundred thousand shy of the peak enforcement year of 1983). Since my parents were urban residents, they didn’t feel the brunt of this enforcement, which fell on the countryside. They also had the fertility preferences of urban folk, which tended toward one child. My parents discussed having a second child after we moved to Canada when I was age seven. But they didn’t feel strongly about it, so they didn’t.
例如，德国各邦就曾这样做过。19世纪的普鲁士将专制政体与现代研究型大学的创立结合起来。俾斯麦在柏林统一德意志各邦后，普鲁士成为化学（可以说是第一个以科学为基础的产业）和电气工程领域的先驱。纳粹德国在征召科学家制造“奇迹武器”（例如世界上第一枚弹道导弹和喷气式战斗机）的同时，继续获得诺贝尔科学奖。苏联则提供了一个更为鲜明的例子。在斯大林的恐怖统治时期，苏联的科学机构开展了开创性的研究。苏联逮捕了大量科学家，其中包括氢弹的主要理论家和苏联航天计划的负责人。不止一位科学家刚从斯大林的古拉格集中营出来，就完成了足以让他们获得诺贝尔奖的研究工作。苏联在斯大林令人憎恶的警察总长拉夫连季·贝利亚的指导下制造了原子弹。就像纳粹德国一样，苏联在最残酷的暴政时期也不断取得科学进步。
The one-child policy left subtle imprints among urban folks. Chinese people my age rarely ask each other whether we have siblings; it becomes quite curious if someone does have any. I have three cousins, and my family encourages me to refer to them as sisters in order to create closeness.
现代中国远没有斯大林或希特勒统治下的警察国家那么极端。科学如何能与专制共存？我认为，主要原因在于科学发展的前提是充足的资金，而充足的资金远比言论自由更为重要，这恰恰是独裁者能够提供的。
Time has worn away some of the memories of the traumas. But they are still there for rural folks. Foreigners curious about the one-child policy will probably not hear vivid stories from the Chinese they speak to, who tend to be relatively privileged people from cities. It is rare for rural folks to be able to study and live abroad. They sometimes have a hard time even moving to cities, given the restrictions of the hukou system—another social engineering project—meant to restrict internal migration. The one-child policy is another reminder of a phrase that resonates a great deal for me: “Chinese peasants, your name is misery.” It was coined by Sun Dawu, a rural entrepreneur now jailed for his advocacy.
讽刺的是，压制或许会促使科学家们更加全身心投入研究，而不是关注周围世界正在发生的剧变。我不认为专制有利于科学，只是它不一定会摧毁科学。在政治局势日益恶化的背景下，中国在工业进步方面取得了长足的进步——太阳能、电动汽车、机械臂等等。曾经的压制。如今，习近平却在大力扶持科学家。我采访了二十多位中国科学家，他们大多在美国接受过培训。他们告诉我，在中国大学获得科研经费比在美国大学更容易。他们的经费几乎没有附加条件，而向美国国家科学基金会申请拨款则要求格式严谨、报告要求繁琐，而且如果不如实披露信息，还会面临牢狱之灾。
The one-child policy could only have been formulated by the engineering state. No other country would have let a missile scientist anywhere near the design of demographic policy. Its roots lie partly in the control tendencies of Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, who wanted to engineer the population so that they could engineer the economy. Partly in reaction to Mao, partly using language given to them by Song Jian, they viewed themselves to be acting on a science that was detached from popular passions, based on Western ecological concerns, and formulated in terms of control theory. They understood themselves to be acting as technocrats.
我设想中国会发展成类似更成功的东德，一个将监控和政治管控与科技强国相结合的国家。共产党不会放松对政治环境的管控；与此同时，它将继续追求科技发展。尽管东德在苏联集团中处于领先地位，但它仍然落后于西方，而我预计中国会取得更大的成功。中国企业将生产高质量的产品，或许只在少数几个行业落后于全球领先企业几年。他们生产的芯片可能不够强大，无法用于最新的iPhone，但足以用于电动汽车和无人机；他们生产的飞机可能不如空客最新的飞机高效，但足以执飞曼谷和上海之间的航线。
The lawyerly society debated the one-child policy and rejected it. The United States and other Western countries also considered implementing strict population controls in reaction to The Population Bomb. Social scientists, especially economists, were quick to criticize the flaws in these linear projections. But in China, social scientists had become meek from Mao’s bullying. At this critical moment, the country lacked the intellectual antibodies to resist the policy’s adoption. Chinese leaders were just enough exposed to the West to absorb this neo-Malthusian doomerism, without being exposed enough to the Western pushback against it.
过去十年间，我的关注点主要集中在中国对具有美国特色的先进技术的排斥上。虽然我希望中国能加强对民众的法律保护，但我并不确定它选择的技术发展道路是否不明智。
And the one-child policy could only have been implemented in the engineering state. While the state possessed a bureaucracy to enforce controls of such extraordinary scale, there wasn’t a sufficiently developed civil society to fight for legal protection against it. The Communist Party is built to implement campaigns of this sort. That is what Leninist parties, which are hierarchical and mobilization oriented, do. When it put someone as savage as the general Qian Xinzhong in charge, it was able to achieve astonishing numbers of sterilizations and abortions.
在本书中，我一直避免将习近平的监管风暴称为“科技打压”。北京一方面对数字平台和实体虚拟经济进行监管，另一方面却对半导体等更偏重技术的领域给予了扶持。习近平试图引导科技公司减少对虚拟或金融创新的关注，让清华大学和北京大学等高校的顶尖人才投身战略性产业。
The one-child policy is one of the searing indictments of the engineering state. It represents what can go wrong when a country views members of its population as aggregates that can be manipulated rather than individuals who have desires, goals, or rights.
北京针对数字平台的行动背后是一种怀疑。利润丰厚的数字公司并没有为社会其他领域创造价值。在线教育、社交媒体或金融科技领域的创业活力正在造成各种形式的社会危害。包括加密货币和元宇宙在内的虚拟经济吸纳了过多的人才和资金。习近平和政治局其他成员感到不安，因为经济的前沿发展似乎是由投资者的反复无常而非国家利益所驱动的。
Susan Greenhalgh related the story of Liang Zhongtang, who was one of the few vocal opponents of the one-child policy inside the party. He was, however, only a professor in the backwater of Shanxi province, making him far removed from actual policymaking. Liang attempted to make China’s leadership see villagers as people, whose childbearing desires were embedded in a network of cultural values and economic needs. He handily lost the battle to the cybernetics faction led by Song, who viewed rural folks as a variable to be controlled as the state saw fit. “The size of a family is too important to be left to the personal decision of a couple,” Qian Xinzhong said. “Births are a matter of state planning, just like other economic and social activities, because they are a matter of strategic concern.”
在目睹中国镇压行动展开的过程中，我的感觉是北京试图避免采用现代美国的经济结构。过去二十年，美国的主要经济增长点分别位于东西海岸的硅谷和华尔街。随后，科技和金融业都被认为是诸多社会弊病的罪魁祸首。如果说美国哪个时代的创新最能吸引北京，那或许是上世纪六七十年代的硅谷。当时，像英特尔这样的芯片制造商正处于蓬勃发展期，并成为五角大楼和美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的主要供应商之一。那是一个科技公司制造产品、雇佣大量员工并满足国家安全需求的时代。
For my parents, it was apparent that China was facing shortages when they grew up. They needed ration tickets for everything: rice, eggs, cooking oil, bicycles, an apartment. Obtaining almost anything was difficult. My mom and dad were among a handful of students able to earn a spot at university. When I asked my dad whether the one-child policy made sense to him, he replied, ren tai duo. Too many people! It’s a common refrain. Anyone taking the subway during rush hour or touring scenic spots over national holidays might hear it muttered still today.
因此，北京试图进行经济改革。中国领导层希望科技型产业能够焕发活力，弥补其战略缺陷。这尤其意味着半导体或清洁技术等先进制造业。这意味着中国需要持续生产，并且“绝不能去工业化”。北京将Facebook或TikTok等社交媒体平台主要视为自由表达的平台。它们对经济生产力的提升作用甚微，却极易引发政治动荡。与此同时，中国领导层更加渴望借鉴德国等国家的经验。德国虽然没有涌现出数字巨头，但却拥有稳固的制造业基础。
There’s no question that Chinese people experienced severe shortages of everything prior to the adoption of the one-child policy in 1980. But these shortages were the result of the socialist planned economy. This system was characterized by agricultural collectivization, an emphasis on heavy industry, and lavish spending on national defense, leaving little left for consumer production. Consumer shortages eased when Deng moved China away from socialism. It’s unclear if Deng was aware of the irony that he was attempting to impose planning on the population while he was trying to dismantle planning for the economy.
在美国，物理学和数学博士几乎没有机会在科技巨头或对冲基金之前从事本领域的工作。基金在会议间隙将他们招揽，抛出巨额薪酬方案，将这些渴望成功的年轻人纳入其光鲜亮丽的怀抱。政府高级顾问或多或少都表示，北京打算阻止此类诱惑。北京大学院长姚洋欣慰地指出，监管机构对金融业薪酬设定40万美元上限后，金融业的薪资水平有所下降。姚洋表示，此举旨在“降低金融业的吸引力，促进制造业发展”。
While China’s population has increased by 40 percent since the start of the one-child policy—with Beijing doubling in size and Shanghai quadrupling—Chinese are living better than they ever have. They are rich in material possessions and can more easily access the finer things in life. That shift was chiefly produced by ceding economic freedom and allowing people to trade with the rest of the world. And though Mao’s economic policies caused famine and destitution, it’s hard not to agree with his remark from 1949: “Even if China’s population multiplies many times, it is fully capable of finding a solution. That solution is production.”
这一策略已经产生了严重的负面影响。最显著的是，在众多企业家的企业遭受重创之后，它打击了创业者的积极性。而且，运营像国家安全科技项目这样的大型技术产业也未必总能产生赢家。毕竟，苏联最终未能跟上西方设定的技术前沿，尽管它在科学领域取得了巨大成就。中国以苏联从未做到的方式创建了成功的商业公司，尽管这些公司面临着被国家吞噬的风险。同样，美国仍然拥有一定程度的制造业优势，以特斯拉这样的公司为代表。但这只是个例。尽管特斯拉或许能够再次引领美国重回制造业强国的行列，但它也可能像曾经拖垮波音和英特尔那样，被日益衰落的工艺知识所吞噬。
Rather than acknowledge that it could not deliver the goods, the Communist Party decided instead to blame the people. It was their “overpopulation” that was the problem, not the inadequate economic system that the leadership insisted on.
尽管中国企业受到来自北京的政治限制和来自华盛顿的芯片限制，但它们仍然取得了突破性进展。杭州一家公司开发的DeepSeek是少数几个前沿人工智能模型之一，其成本仅为OpenAI的ChatGPT的几分之一。中国的人工智能研究人员并不落后。他们发表了大量人工智能论文，其公司发布的模型在技术基准测试中得分很高。此外，中国政府也在部署人工智能，但更多是用于审查、人脸识别和其他控制手段。
After people accommodated the one-child policy by resorting to female infanticide, Beijing felt some embarrassment over the ensuing headlines. Rather than acknowledge the impossible choices it had forced people into, the Communist Party once again blamed the people. Cadres declared female infanticide a symptom of “feudal practices” and a “peasant mentality.” Any efforts to actually address the problem were half-hearted, consisting of exhortation and an educational campaign. Population control was still China’s primary problem. Millions of missing girls were a distantly secondary concern.
中国在人工智能领域拥有可以发挥的优势。越来越明显的是，美国公司面临的瓶颈并非计算能力，而是电力供应。人工智能数据服务器耗电量巨大，以至于微软曾试图重启臭名昭著的三里岛核电站；而Meta公司原本计划在该地附近建造一座同样依靠核能运行的数据中心，却因附近发现了一种珍稀蜜蜂而被迫中止。对于工程技术强国而言，没有什么比巨额工业能源投资更能激发他们的热情了。中国或许在技术上的不足，可以用其强大的电力供应来弥补。
The Communist Party invoked the environment to justify the one-child policy. Shortly after implementing it, China began its great industrialization, which lifted economic growth while ruining much of the country’s ecology: polluting its lakes, pushing heavy metals into its soils, and delivering coal smoke into its air. It wasn’t overpopulation that destroyed Shenzhen’s oyster ecosystems; it was state-directed industrialization. The one-child policy occurred in parallel with China’s wanton devastation of its environment. Perhaps the policy even offered policymakers moral license to justify environmental devastation.
中国也存在滥用人工智能的风险。中国体制有时对新技术或新理论过于热情。1978年，中国一位顶尖科学家出国学习一门名为控制论的新兴学科，并将一些思想的种子带回国内，最终发展成为独生子女政策。或许，法律至上的社会能够拥有足够的意识形态韧性，不被人工智能所诱惑，而专制国家则可能因此走向自我毁灭。但西方人的思维也可能被人工智能所摧毁。在美国，大众传媒的每一次变革——从20世纪90年代的有线电视、21世纪初的互联网、2010年代的社交媒体，到如今的人工智能——都加剧了民众与精英之间以及精英彼此之间的不满。美国社会如今比二十年前混乱得多，那时人们还受制于共同的现实，而不是像现在这样各自走向不同的世界。
How will the one-child policy be remembered? At its conclusion in 2015, a trio of demographers offered an assessment in the journal Studies in Family Planning: “Future generations will likely look back at China’s one-child policy with bewilderment and disbelief. To many it will be incomprehensible why, of all countries that faced the challenge of rapid population growth in the second half of the twentieth century, only China went to such an extreme; incomprehensible why in a society based on respect for the family, kin, and filial piety, the government enforced a policy that effectively terminated many kin ties for at least a generation; incomprehensible why China instituted such a policy after the country had already experienced substantial fertility decline; and incomprehensible why China waited so long to end such a harmful policy.”
目前尚不清楚人工智能对哪个国家会造成更大的动荡。中国这个“堡垒”正努力抵御社交媒体平台的冲击。通过对互联网和人工智能的严格限制，习近平将中国打造成为一个能够管控海量信息流的安全国家。北京或许希望，社交媒体和人工智能的双重冲击会给美国人带来灾难性的后果。也许这些因素会加剧内部动荡。美国人的分裂。随着越来越多的美国人沉浸于数字世界，习近平将带领中国人回归现实世界，繁衍后代，生产钢铁，制造半导体。
Of all the critiques of the one-child policy, perhaps the most poignant is that it was not necessary to reduce China’s fertility rate. That was already falling due to earlier, less coercive family planning policies. China’s fertility rate was around 6.0 per woman at the start of 1970; a decade later, when the state implemented the one-child policy, the fertility rate had already fallen to 2.7. Professional demographers still debate the extent of the fertility decline that the one-child policy produced. Official state media have claimed that family planning measures over four decades prevented four hundred million births. That figure is marred, however, by the same sort of linear assumptions embedded in the projections by Song Jian. Any effort to determine the number of births prevented by the one-child policy is made difficult by patchy data released by the government.
人工智能不应让我们忽视美国更广泛的缺陷。我不认为美中之间一定会爆发全面战争。但双方都在密切研究对方的军事优势和劣势，以应对可能发生的冲突。如果战争真的爆发，那将是世界末日般的景象。战争可能在太平洋或其他地区爆发。随着美中关系日益紧张，冲突的可能性也在增加。美国正面临着一个人口是其四倍、经济潜力巨大、制造业产能远超自身及其盟友的势均力敌的竞争对手。如果中美真的兵戎相见，双方将以截然不同的优势卷入一场混战。你会选择软件还是硬件？
Demographers give credit to Deng Xiaoping for driving down fertility not through the one-child policy but through economic reopening. Higher rates of urbanization, educational attainment, and, most of all, economic growth have been the best contraceptive measures devised by modernity. These were factors that drove neighboring Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to lower their fertility rate too.
美国和中国在军备数量上的差距十分显著。2022年，中国在建舰艇近1800艘，而美国仅有5艘。美国支持乌克兰对抗俄罗斯侵略也暴露了其国内军备能力的匮乏。乌克兰两天内发射的炮弹数量就相当于美国一个月的产量。在拜登政府即将卸任之际，国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文直言不讳地表示，如果美国真的与中国军队交锋，其“弹药储备将很快耗尽”。
The true legacies of the one-child policy are psychological scars, sometimes physical scars for the mothers, gender inequity, and a rapidly aging population. An aging population was always a predictable concern with the one-child policy. In fact, it was acknowledged by the Communist Party’s open letter in 1980. The letter brushed aside concerns that a future child would have to support four grandparents, saying instead that the policy would secure such national prosperity that the state would be able to afford generous pensions for all. Propaganda authorities asked people to trust the government, before switching to tell them to stop burdening the government. Whereas one of the former propaganda slogans read, “Have one child, it will be enough; the state will care for you when you’re old and tough,” a new slogan now reads, “Have three children so you won’t have to seek state-supported elder care.”
中国并不缺乏军火。一旦发生紧急情况，中国能够像扩大个人防护装备的生产规模一样，迅速提升军火产量，而美国却在最基本的物资上都举步维艰。我担心美国过于依赖人工智能来扭转战局。即便美国最终实现了通用人工智能，它也需要具备实际制造无人机或军火的能力；单靠算法永远无法赢得战争。尽管美国拥有世界上最先进的战斗机和潜艇，但其自身产量却微乎其微。美国国防工业在将生产分配给受其青睐的国会议员的选区时，往往并不注重效率。
Neither Song Jian nor Qian Xinzhong appeared to have much regret about their roles in the one-child policy. Qian was given a curious honor in 1983, when the United Nations Fund for Population awarded him (along with Indira Gandhi, who presided over a campaign of forced sterilizations in India) its inaugural Population Award. He never held another office after running the family planning commission, dying in 2009 at the age of ninety-eight.
在现代社会，许多制成品都可以被改造用于军事用途。我们随身携带的智能手机所配备的传感器，在十年前就已经达到了军用级别。消费级无人机也具有军民两用特性，这也是为什么乌克兰和俄罗斯都曾试图购买中国大疆（DJI）的无人机用于战场的原因。因此，工业产能越来越应该被理解为军事产能。中国生产的无人机、智能手机和电池等产品，使其拥有美国未必具备的优势。
Song Jian is still around. After 1980, he held a dazzling array of high positions: president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, minister for science and technology, state councilor, and membership in the Communist Party’s Central Committee for twenty years. He was a natural politician. When China’s population did not explode, he was able to declare victory anyway for defusing China’s population bomb. Song never lost his enthusiasm for cybernetics. In an ambitious article written in 1984, he advocated for a strong leader, supported by teams of technical cadres, to employ cybernetics to manage the entire society.
中国庞大且适应性强的制造业基础持续增长。联合国工业发展组织在2024年预测，到2030年，中国将占全球工业产能的45%。美国、欧洲、日本、韩国、台湾以及所有其他高收入国家加起来的产能仅占全球的38%。在危机时期，中国展现出了比美国更强大的制造业扩张能力，因此，战争时期的情况是否会改变这一比例尚不明朗。与此同时，由于中国制造商在补贴的推动下，即使亏损也在生产，美国的制造业产能正面临更大的侵蚀。中国的工业实力是一项战略优势，足以压制世界上所有富裕国家。
Before Song retired in 2002, his final project involved chronology. After visiting Egypt, he grew embarrassed that China apparently lacked a detailed chronology of its ancient civilization. Though China claims 5,000 years of continuous history, the first few thousand are a bit hazy. Song established that Chinese civilization was 1,400 years more ancient than previously recorded. Another great feat! There’s nothing that many Chinese love to hear more than the idea that the nation’s past glories were even more glorious than anyone had grasped.
我喜欢想象，如果两个超级大国都能吸收对方的一些弊病，世界将会变得多么美好。我不认为美国人会有一天醒来发现政府会有效地压制所有反对大型项目的呼声，我也不认为中国人会遇到这样的政府。最终，他们愿意不再干涉。相反，我希望中国学会珍视多元化，同时为个人提供实质性的法律保护；而美国则恢复为人民建设家园的能力。
It was the last example of how Song applied his brilliant mind along with an amateur’s enthusiasm to serve state ends. His work in historical chronology might be harmless, but his involvement in fashioning the one-child policy produced so much trauma. Perhaps I was wrong to compare Song Jian to Albert Einstein in terms of their influence after pressing scientific analysis into the hands of senior leaders. The more apt comparison for Song might be to Trofim Lysenko, the agronomist who aligned himself with Soviet orthodoxy and helped perpetuate famines in the Soviet Union.
我并不想废除律师这个职业。相反，我希望帮助工程师（以及他们那些技术官僚式的同行——经济学家）重回巅峰。这并非要将他们捧上神坛，而是要提升他们的地位，让更多不同的声音能够被听到。美国需要的不是那些毕生致力于诉讼、让政府机构举步维艰的律师，而是更多那些善于达成交易、致力于提供更优质服务的律师。法学教授尼克·巴格利在他关于程序主义的开创性论文（我在第一章中引用过）的结尾，提出了一个看似温和却极具深意的观点，我对此深表赞同：律师们应该思考，如果他们不再干预，是否反而能取得更大的成就。
Song’s example is one reason that I’ve become suspicious of anyone who advocates “following the science.” We have to get quite worried if anyone in power starts saying that science alone is an object to be pursued rather than having to situate it in a social and ethical context. There is still truth, I think, to Winston Churchill’s quip that scientists should be “on tap, not on top.”
很难想象中国如何摆脱对工程师的依赖。早在欧洲君主萌生专制思想的一千年前，中国的皇帝们就已经实行了专制统治。中国的公民社会长期以来较为薄弱，家族势力强大，但并不像欧洲那样拥有能够引发政治斗争的宗教组织和军事贵族。自隋朝六世纪引入科举制度以来，有志于求学的知识分子大多遵循皇帝制定的课程进行学习。中国缺乏以保护个人自由为中心的自由主义传统，原因之一在于宫廷知识分子往往不会发展出旨在约束皇帝及其官僚机构的哲学思想。
By the year 2100, China’s population is on track to decrease to seven hundred million people. As it turns out, that was the optimal population size calculated by Song Jian.
中国需要律师。或者更准确地说，中国需要人民有能力拒绝国家对其身体、言论和思想的控制。
Far from celebrating this decline, Xi Jinping and the rest of China’s leadership are trying to reverse it. Each year after 2022 will see slightly fewer people powering the Communist Party’s great odyssey toward national rejuvenation. Maternity wards are starting to shut down in several provinces since there are fewer newborns. In 2025, adult diapers are expected to outsell baby diapers. China has already grown old before it grew rich: When Japan’s population started to decline (fourteen years before China’s), it was more than twice as rich.
这个国家不乏规章制度。习近平为他的盟友提供一切；对于他的敌人，他则诉诸法律。因为他中国将“依法治国”作为一项标志性优先事项，导致法律法规堆积如山。但这并不意味着它实现了西方所理解的法治。习近平摒弃了宪政理念，最高人民法院院长也谴责宪政民主是“虚假的西方理想”。中国缺乏对个人权利的真正尊重。国家对公民挑战政府行为的权限十分有限，而共产党本身则不受诉讼约束。司法系统并非总是公开案件记录，而且即便公开，也拥有很大的自由裁量权，可以左右诉讼结果。
Was there ever a country that exerted so much effort to deplete its own population? Mao would be astonished by the one-child policy, as would almost any other world leader before him. With people comes power. Political leaders have universally tended to want more of both. Demographic decline will entail a slow grinding down of China’s actual capabilities to achieve geopolitical preeminence.
变革会如何发生？或许是通过普通的抵抗行动。千百年来，中国的领导人一直试图加强对人民的控制。而人民也发展出了应对这种控制的策略。尽管国家希望将社会视为一项工程，但对于我们这些在中国生活过一段时间的人来说，中国的真实面貌——一个混乱的国家——却显而易见。中国的日常生活远比官方媒体所展现的形象混乱得多，官方媒体营造的形象是每个村庄都一尘不染，每个人都笔直地聆听着习近平的讲话。
China’s low birth rate worries Xi Jinping and the rest of the Communist Party. In the 2023 meeting with the women’s federation, Xi vowed that over his third term his administration “will improve and implement pro-fertility policies.” The shift to the two-child policy in 2016 and the three-child policy in 2021 did not produce many more births. China’s fertility rate of 1.0 is now lower than Japan’s and keeps falling short of even recent low-fertility projections.
共产党既没有远见卓识的技术官僚机构，也无法随心所欲地施加压力来确保国家安全。人们总能找到办法来应对工程师们最苛刻的要求。他们善于利用弱者的弱点。当人们看到政府颁布一系列毫无道理的规章制度时，他们的反应可能是拖延、小题大做、装聋作哑，甚至反驳。正是这种协商机制使得人们能够适应工程师们的要求。
So the party has grown more vocal in blaming one final group: women.
如果共产党能够学会克制，更加重视个人，未来将会更好。与那些有“rùn” （意为“有钱人”）的年轻人相处，能很好地提醒我们这一点。政治局并不能代表整个国家。共产党永远不会相信，那些嗑药嗑到神志不清的中国孩子是国家的潜在财富。我从他们身上，以及其他尽力与政府抗争的中国人身上看到的，是一种在逆境中坚持不懈、努力求生的精神。我希望有一天，共产党能够放手，让人民自由发展。
It’s hard to be a woman in China today. Many of them did not survive the one-child policy: There are approximately forty million more Chinese men than women. Though the country has plenty of successful female entrepreneurs and billionaires, Xi has shoved women out of the top echelon of the Chinese government. His primary message is that women must become docile promoters of family harmony, which means bearing more children. That theme is also being echoed by the rest of society. Rather than being joyful, Lunar New Year is an irksome time for younger Chinese women. They must face dozens of relatives, from whom they expect only one question: “When will you marry?” to the single woman, and “When will you have kids?” to the married.
那些富有创造力的年轻人并非中国第一批移居海外的人。二十年前，一对三十多岁的夫妇从云南移民。他们远不如清迈的年轻人那么时髦。但我的父母离开中国的原因与他们有很多相似之处：对国家的发展方向感到失望，并愿意冒险去国外寻求更好的生活。他们带着我，一个七岁的孩子，踏上了前往加拿大的旅程。
The journalist and sociologist Leta Hong Fincher has documented the brazen insults that women have to endure, especially from state media. In her book Leftover Women, she chronicles how women tend to be discarded (often in contempt) once they’ve reached unmarriageable age, which state media considers to be twenty-seven years old. She documented how women must endure all manner of insulting headlines lamenting their case: “Eight Simple Moves to Escape the Leftover Women Trap,” and the column posted shortly after Women’s Day, “Do Leftover Women Really Deserve Our Sympathy?” The aim of stigmatizing singlehood, Hong Fincher writes, is to stop urban women from delaying marriage and childbirth much further.
第七章 学会爱上工程师
As China shifts away from birth control under Deng (and several successors) to birth promotion under Xi, it is relying once again on the tools of the engineering state. But the state is starting to see that this dial cannot be turned back. Although the state has had many tools to prevent births, it can’t seem to find the right tools to encourage copulation.
搬到西部，我的父母做出了一个痛苦的个人决定，而这个决定几乎完全是基于对未来的一种猜测。这是一种有根据的猜测，部分源于深厚的家族历史，其中也包括一些与政府部门令人不安的遭遇。但更重要的是，他们考虑的是未来。他们和年幼的我（当时七岁）在哪里更有可能过上美好的生活？哪个政府，哪套规则，更有利于他们的福祉？他们看着一个由工程师主导的、他们熟悉的世界，以及一个充满诱惑却又神秘莫测的、由律师主导的世界（当然，他们当时并不知道这一点），他们必须做出选择，就像一场赌博。多年以后，他们当初的选择是否正确，仍然难以断定。
State media has become increasingly desperate to urge births. In 2018, two academics proposed the establishment of a “birth fund,” to which all workers under the age of forty must contribute, while couples who have more than one child could apply for subsidies from the fund. Decried as a tax on the childless, that proposal went nowhere.
我的父母都出生在昆明，云南省的省会。据说云南人生活悠闲，更喜欢悠闲地喝茶聊天，而不是拼命赶路。当然，昆明也没什么值得赶路的地方。我父母离开时，昆明还是个偏僻的小城，如今依然如此。政府将昆明列为三线城市。停滞不前的工资和疲软的房价就是最好的证明。想到父母的文化背景和成长经历，我真没想到他们会选择移民。我们家是地地道道的云南家庭。我妈妈瑞秋和爸爸弗兰克，他们各自的父母，一位在云南扎根很深，另一位则是战乱时期被带到那里的。
In 2021, an unsigned commentary appeared in a state media paper demanding that all members of the Communist Party have three children, in unusually vehement terms. “That would not only be good for the family,” the editorial said, “but also national development needs. It must be every party member’s responsibility to have three children! They can’t offer wimpy reasons not to marry, and to have just one or two kids.” This editorial was deleted after an online outcry. Demanding a politically loyal cadre to have many children is not new. I think Heinrich Himmler, however, said it better when he exhorted SS officers to have more than four children: “Think of Bach! He was the thirteenth child in his family! After the fifth or sixth, or even the twelfth child, if Mama Bach had said ‘that’s enough now,’ which would have been understandable, the works of Bach would never have been written.”
我的爷爷，也就是我父亲的父亲，出生于云南最显赫的商人家族。朱家花园是云南最大的宅邸，其园林之美，足以媲美苏州那些迷人的庄园。十九世纪清末，朱家的族长掌管着以锡矿和铜矿开采为主的生意，并像当时成功的商人一样，将业务拓展到茶叶销售、酿酒、丝绸生产，甚至可能还参与了鸦片贸易——尽管我问起亲戚们这件事时，他们总是含糊其辞。
Three decades of persuasion in favor of one child has worked too well. All women of childbearing age grew up in a China insisting that the best number of kids was one or zero. In response to social and government pressures to have more kids, women retort on social media with pictures of slogans that used to be plastered all over the countryside urging families to reduce fertility. Half of all Chinese women born after 1995 told the Chinese general social survey of 2021 that they desire one or zero children. The bullying they have to endure from the Women’s Federation and state media hasn’t made them enthusiastic about childrearing. When a southeastern city offered incentives for leftover women to marry rural, unemployed men, women reacted with incredulity. Why should a woman leave a city job to marry a man she regards as a deadbeat? Marriage has become even less appealing since Chinese judges are increasingly reluctant to grant a divorce: 70 percent of divorce applications were granted in the mid-2000s, a rate that fell to 40 percent a decade later.
爷爷叶叶出生于朱家花园，那时清朝已经覆灭几年了。他出生时，朱家已所剩无几。朱家因为屡次支持政治上的失败者而逐渐失去财富：先是支持清军，后来又支持国民党，最终被共产党击败。爷爷出生时，朱家的家主已经因政治不忠而被处决。于是，叶叶和他的兄弟姐妹们流落昆明，家道中落。
The one-child policy persisted for one and a half generations. Its effects will echo far longer. I am skeptical that the engineering state will be successful in producing a surge of births. There have been pronatalist policies in other countries (Hungary, Israel, and many others), with little evidence that they could structurally push up birth rates for long. China is catching up with other countries in these fertility policies, held back both by technology as well as social attitudes. The country has only six hundred hospitals officially authorized to offer in vitro fertilization services. And the state makes it illegal for unmarried women to freeze their eggs. To preserve their fertility, single women have been forced to travel to Taiwan or Thailand in order to find egg-freezing services.
我祖父家境勉强够得上读书。在那里，他遇到了一位同样出身卑微的女子。我祖母，也就是我父亲的母亲，名叫奶奶，出生在当时的首都南京。她的父亲是国民党领袖蒋介石的几位秘书之一。在日本人占领南京之前，这位秘书带着我年幼的祖母，和蒋介石政府的其他成员一起撤退到重庆。奶奶曾经跟我讲过她早年的一段记忆：人们拼命地想让她安静下来，以免引起日本轰炸机的注意。之后，她从重庆去了昆明，那是战时政府的第二首都。
It is possible that China will be able to implement profertility policies, as Xi has promised, more successfully than anyone else through tactics of the engineering state. So far, however, women of childbearing age haven’t been interested. Perhaps the state will invent a technological solution to produce more Chinese children. At the moment, the efforts are low tech. Women in urban cities are reporting that they are regularly getting calls from neighborhood officials asking when they plan to have children. These officials are inquisitive, asking when a woman has had her last period, and argumentative, insisting that owning a cat can be no substitute for a child. Most of all, they are nagging. One woman posted, “Government officials have asked me five or six times when I plan to have a child, while my parents have asked me only once.” She goes on to say, “These officials call only to rush me, not to offer any support.”
奶奶和爷爷相识于化学工程师培训期间。上世纪六十年代，她因与国民党有牵连而蒙羞。共产党将她下放到农村劳动，六年不见父亲和爷爷。父亲五岁那年，爷爷误食毒蘑菇（云南人爱吃蘑菇，这很常见）生病了。他想写信给奶奶，但因为不会写“蘑菇”这字，就画了一个。奶奶回忆说，父亲的信让她既困惑又惊恐：“哥哥吃了（画的蘑菇）病了。” 直到生命的尽头，奶奶都痛恨毛泽东那些拆散家庭的疯狂计划。
Rather than being totally fixated on women, the engineering state is now also thinking about men. State media has started to fret about leftover men too. The tens of millions of Chinese men who will never be able to find wives may become a threat to public safety, who could, in the words of one university researcher, “be driven to kidnap women or become addicted to pornography.” Men have also taken to social media to complain that it’s getting too difficult to obtain a vasectomy. Some hospitals turn men away from vasectomy unless they can prove they already have children. National health yearbooks reveal a breathtaking collapse in vasectomies performed in China. They fell from 181,000 in 2014 (the start of Xi’s rule) to fewer than 5,000 in 2019. In the new era, men are getting a taste of birth planning too.
我母亲那边是农村人。我老爷子，也就是我外公，出生在河南北部。十几岁的时候，他侥幸躲过了1942年河南的大饥荒，他的两个兄弟却不幸遇难。老爷子就读的学校，经历了河南政权更迭的几代人：先是国民党，然后是日本人，之后又是国民党，直到共产党取得胜利。他因此爱上了读书。老爷子一家都已去世，他便应征入伍。由于他受过一些教育，识字，所以被选拔为军官。他加入了第二野战军，该军的政委是邓小平，奉命将国民党军队驱逐出四川、贵州和云南。
The one-child policy is a rebuke to the idea that the population can be so easily engineered. Social engineering in this case has produced a spiritual defeatism manifesting in broad exhaustion throughout society. Exactly four decades after China began the one-child policy, it would enact an even more ambitious social program: from controlling people’s bodies to engineering their souls, this time with the aid of digital surveillance.
文化大革命初期，军队分裂成不同的派系，每个派系都宣称自己对毛泽东更加忠诚。我的祖父属于被贴上“右派”标签的派系，因此失去了政治支持。获胜的派系命令他所在的部队回家做家具。他根本不会做家具，但却以军人的坚韧完成了这项任务。毛泽东去世后，老爷子再次经历了战争，1979年中国入侵越南。他担任宣传官，执行一项现在看来十分可笑的任务——向越南军队散发传单，劝告他们不要抵抗。身经百战的越南人几年前还击退过美军的部队，绝不会因为一份传单就投降。
Chapter 5 Zero-Covid
家人说我长得最像爷爷：圆脸、大眼睛、高颧骨。这些特征也可能遗传自爷爷的妻子，我的老奶奶，她有着深厚的云南血统。不像爷爷那样能追溯到十几代富商世家，我外婆的家族背景却平淡无奇。他们世世代代都在云南南部种植红茶。我外婆的家乡是几个少数民族聚居的地方。因为我长得有点特别，家里经常拿我外婆的血统开玩笑，说我有藏族或佤族血统。
China’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic embodies all of the engineering state’s merits and madnesses. It is a powerful reminder of how the engineering state could accomplish things that few other countries would even attempt, while revealing how its literal-minded enforcement can lead to tragic results for human well-being and freedom. I lived through all three years of the zero-Covid strategy that China pursued to stomp out the highly transmissible virus. In the first year, the country felt like a realm of serene calm after it pushed out the virus that was raging far away. In the second year, it still felt pretty good, though all of us were getting antsy as we wondered how the government would organize its exit from the policy. In the third year, everything went to smash.
老老家地比别人家略大一些，这让她得以接受教育，并搬到昆明当了一名幼儿园老师。生活原本很幸福，直到共产党把她家划为小地主，让她也落得个出身低微的下场。于是，除了三个女儿，她也被下放到乡下干活。她的家人大多还在云南南部种植红茶。老老每次亲戚来昆明探望病人（大多是去医院），都会带些茶叶和一只当地的鸡，她会把鸡炖成一锅香浓的金黄色鸡汤。
In 2020, at the end of the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, I moved from Beijing to Shanghai. I was driven away as much by the intensity of Beijing’s political temperament as I was drawn by the splendor of Shanghai’s commercial character.
士兵、地主、叛徒、资本家。我的祖父母都经历了毛泽东时代的政治动荡。父亲那边的家族，曾经的财富和国民党背景，成了他们的绊脚石。而母亲那边的军人世家和农村家庭背景，也同样没能为他们带来政治上的青睐。毛泽东时代的中国就像一个沸腾的大熔炉，人们的地位随着时间推移而起伏不定：毛泽东追求的是持续不断的革命。当我与祖父母谈起他们的经历时，只有我的奶奶仍然心怀怨恨。其他人则对文化大革命期间的苦难一笑置之，对与父母分离的日子也轻描淡写。他们告诉我，他们并没有遭受特别严重的苦难。的确如此。他们要么饿死，要么遭受摧毁其他家庭的仪式性殴打。
Beijing had been China’s seat of empire for centuries when Stalinist architects began, in 1949, to reshape the city for socialist magnificence. Visitors from Shanghai liked to tease those of us in Beijing: “Why would you live in Pyongyang when you can live in Paris?” It was annoying. Then the SARS-CoV2 virus burst out from Wuhan. Pandemic regulations made Beijing an even more tightly controlled city than in normal times. When I heeded these exhortations and made the move to Shanghai, which imposed substantially looser restrictions, life really did feel cheerier. People were walking the streets, many of them unmasked in Shanghai’s considerably warmer clime, out and about having a great time.
父母被下放到农村期间，我的父母大多过得很开心。他们回忆起文化大革命时，觉得那是一段美好的时光，他们逃学，通过高喊口号、敲鼓等方式为共产主义的传播贡献力量。我的父母很幸运。由于他们是城市居民，学习成绩又好，后来都得以上大学。他们都出生于1959年的黄金时代，是上大学创业的一代。高中毕业后，我父亲去广州学习计算机科学，我母亲则在昆明学习热能工程。
Before Soviet-trained engineers refashioned Beijing for monumentalism, the French built Shanghai for pleasure. Colonial powers transformed Shanghai from a modest trading port in the nineteenth century into the beachhead for foreign powers to penetrate the country’s giant market. The British, the Americans, and the French each carved out enclaves where their residents could disregard Chinese law. The second-largest bank house in the world was built in the British and American zone, alongside insurers, trading companies, and leisure clubs that established themselves around a bend of the Huangpu River. These testaments to European colonial power—some of the tallest buildings in Asia when they were constructed—look as if they were lifted from the banks of the Thames. They are still there today, a beautiful and odd part of Shanghai’s skyline. Chinese flags flutter atop every steeple or spire: the modern state’s unsubtle reminder that the colonial era is over.
等到他们上大学的时候，邓小平已经开始逐步取消计划经济了。我妈妈大一的时候，每个月只有四张肉配给券。她很注意不在第一周就用完，这样之后还能吃到红烧肉。到了大四，配给券制度基本取消了，她想吃肉就吃肉。
The French established a concession distinct from the British and American zones. The area was filled less with grand buildings than with gardens and residences. Leafy plane trees, common in parks in London and Paris, lined the streets. Shanghai was the first city in Asia to adopt modern amenities like public electric lights, a tram line, a stock exchange, department stores, and cinemas. No wonder it was then nicknamed the “Paris of the East.”
但社会主义并没有立刻消失。上世纪80年代中期，我父母大学毕业后，被卷入了邓小平的一项计划，这项计划实际上是对毛泽东思想的复辟：他们两人都被派往一个小城市当中学生教师。国家把他们俩派到了云南的大理——巧合的是，2022年我和西尔维娅也为了躲避新冠疫情的封锁而逃到了那里。很难想象还有比这更好的派遣地点。他们成了这支由三十多名青年组成的教师队伍中的一对。我父母结婚时，他们的同事们几乎成了宾客。那时大家都不富裕。新郎新娘款待了所有宾客，并在餐后给每位宾客分发了一块牛奶糖。
Shanghai was controlled by foreigners, not Chinese, and these foreigners were merchants, not officials. Though a proliferation of sovereignties produced occasional friction, everyone worked harmoniously to make Shanghai a city of indulgence. Well-to-do families could shop New York fashions. Macy’s had a department store on the city’s main promenade. Those who were in the market for less wholesome fun could find it only a few streets away—at cabarets and jazz clubs, with sing-song girls and Japanese geishas, in Chinese card games and Western slot machines. Shanghai was, in the beginning of the twentieth century, the brothel capital of the world. The city was also full of opium dens, consuming perhaps 90 percent of the world’s narcotic drugs. Professional Chinese criminal organizations ran this vice trade and became as powerful as any other political authority in the city.
父母完成教学服务后，回到了昆明。国家安排我父亲教计算机编程。在当地大学。那时，广州的计算机专业本科文凭就足以在昆明当讲师。而国家则安排我母亲去煤电厂工作。那份工作很脏。由于我母亲像她父亲一样热爱读书写作，她便开始编辑电厂的内部新闻简报。
Shanghai dimmed in the 1930s after Japan began its brutal invasion. Through that decade, the city became a shatter zone of sundry peoples: still the home of Western businessmen, their fortunes made by introducing skin creams, cigarettes, and modern extravagances to Asian buyers; a burgeoning middle class of Chinese who worked in the country’s most industrial city; a vast number of itinerant workers, beggars, and orphans who lived in utter poverty; Jews, White Russians, and stateless refugees who lived not much better; and a few ultrawealthy who treated the city as their extraterritorial playground. Leftists organized in these intoxicating settings too. In 1921, a dozen intellectuals gathered in the French Concession to found the Chinese Communist Party.
我妈妈决心离开煤电厂，从事新闻工作。她从小就说标准普通话，因为她身边都是来自全国各地的军官，而不是云南方言。当她申请调到新闻局时，省广播公司注意到她清晰洪亮的普通话，便聘请她负责文化和健康方面的报道。后来，广播公司提拔她成为广播新闻主播，偶尔也主持电视节目。每当她在电视上看到我，或者在播客节目里听到我的声音，她总会先评价我的声音，然后再告诉我她对我说的话的看法。她总是提醒我，最好的声音应该是从腹部发出，同时让声音听起来像是从额头里发出来的。（这可是给所有做播客的人的一条建议。）
After Shanghai survived Japan’s invasion and Mao’s rule, its star rose again through the 1980s. The central government displayed such brazen favoritism toward Shanghai that people waiting for a bus in other cities might call out, “Let comrades from Shanghai board first!” to prompt a burst of sour laughter around them. Today, Shanghai’s seedy past is out of view. But remnants of its colonial history are everywhere, only now with a refurbishing by consumer-friendly modernity. Neoclassical buildings made of elegant stone on the west bank of the Huangpu face off against Shanghai’s iconic skyscrapers on the other bank, which are once again Asia’s tallest buildings, only now encased in glass.
上世纪九十年代，中国经济陷入低迷，我的父母因此移民。当时云南的经济前景黯淡。过去十年人们所怀有的政治和经济乐观情绪，随着邓小平下令暴力镇压学生运动而彻底破灭，并引发了国际制裁。我的父母比那些抗议者年长几岁，眼睁睁地看着军队控制北京，感到无比沮丧。当时全国上下都对邓小平的改革开放政策能否成功抱有怀疑。美国、加拿大和澳大利亚等国家都在积极招揽中国人移民。对于一对三十多岁、带着年幼孩子的夫妇来说，搬家并非易事。他们最珍贵的财产是堆放在我们小公寓里的成堆书籍，但他们几乎无法搬走。但当加拿大政府宣布他们是高技能移民并向他们发放工作签证后，他们决定离开。
My home in Shanghai was in the former French Concession, which is still full of plane trees and cafés. I loved this area. A twenty-minute walk south of my home was a bakery started by a French émigré, which made apple strudels and baguettes. Twenty minutes north was one of the six Starbucks Roasteries in the world—a two-floor space with a half dozen serving stations—which the company advertises as a “theatrical shrine to coffee passion.” Walking twenty minutes east brought me to an attractive gray-brick museum that was the location of the first congress of the Communist Party. Surrounding it is a shopping complex featuring Lululemon, Carhartt, and Le Labo. If any of the summer tour groups found themselves too hot while queuing to enter the Communist Party museum, they could pop next door for a frozen custard at Shake Shack.
2000年2月，我们搬到了多伦多郊区。时机不太好。我第一次意识到降雪量可以用英尺来衡量，而且积雪可以持续数月，变成越来越难处理的冰。更糟糕的是，互联网泡沫刚刚破裂。我父亲的编程技能瞬间变得毫无用处。我母亲也从云南的新闻主播沦落到在加拿大打零工，做过清洁工、服装工人、按摩师等等。不久之后，我们搬到了渥太华，以便我父亲攻读计算机科学硕士学位。父亲学习、母亲工作的时候，我有时会调皮捣蛋，但他们威胁要把我送去参军时，我并不相信。出乎意料的是，他们真的这么做了。更出乎他们意料的是，我竟然喜欢上了加拿大皇家陆军学员的生活。高中放学后，我每周两次去国会山附近的训练场练习地图判读、野外露营，偶尔也练练射击。最高兴的是我的老爷，他很高兴我和他一样选择了从军。
When I reminisce about Shanghai, I don’t just miss its splendid urban beauty. Nestled throughout these spaces are some of the most wonderful eateries in the world.
在我成长的过程中，父母总是为钱发愁。虽然我能做其他孩子能做的大部分事情，但时不时地，我也会残酷地意识到我们家有多么穷。我没法参加生日派对，因为我们买不起礼物。有一年冬天，父母带我去一个机构领圣诞玩具，我高兴极了，因为里面有一袋玩具。然而，其他孩子却毫不客气地告诉我，我一定是穷才能领到这些玩具，这让我瞬间失去了喜悦。我们从来没有一双足够结实的靴子，可以应付渥太华寒冷的冬天。我们外出吃饭，总是去赛百味，一个一英尺长的三明治就要五块钱。现在，每当我闻到赛百味面包那独特的味道，都会感到一阵反胃。
Though Sichuan food might be China’s most thrilling cuisine, I believe that Shanghai is home to its finest. This region was China’s richest and most fertile for centuries, developing sophisticated dishes. Breakfast might consist of a half dozen soup dumplings served in a bamboo steamer, meant to be dipped in a tray of vinegar with a few shreds of ginger. Shanghai noodles are drizzled in scallion oil and served with a slab of braised pork belly and a few pieces of kelp. Shanghai cuisine varies enormously by season, showcasing the bounty of the region. In the autumn, banquet tables are full of steamed mitten crabs, prized not only for their delicate flesh but even more for their bright orange roe, which are briny and have the chewy consistency of the steamed yolk of a duck egg. Spring is even better. Markets lay out a riotous mix of leafy greens, which the Shanghainese like to sauté with a splash of high-proof liquor. Bamboo shoots burst forth when the weather turns warm, and chefs throw them into soups or braises to bring out their sweet tenderness.
我父亲在宾夕法尼亚州找到一份软件开发员的工作后，我们收拾好在加拿大的所有家当，搬到了郊区。我们来自费城。我们的时机再次不佳：离开加拿大三个月后，美国股市便因2008年金融危机而开始剧烈波动。幸运的是，我父亲保住了工作。我在巴克斯县读高中，那里风景如画，宛如世外桃源。高中时，有一天父亲告诉我他没钱供我上大学。我并不怀疑他：当时美国的移民制度只允许他工作，我母亲不行。我最终进入罗切斯特大学学习，这是少数几所向加拿大公民提供经济援助的大学之一，几乎提供了全额奖学金。入学后，我立即开始打工补贴生活费。
Shanghai was wonderful that spring. China’s zero-Covid strategy had broadly halted the transmission of the virus. By April 2020, just a few months after the Wuhan outbreak, while Americans were huddling indoors, I was going out again to restaurants and then to cinemas later that summer.* In 2020, when I asked my parents whether I should visit them in Pennsylvania, their reply was not very typical for Chinese: they demanded that I didn’t visit. Much better to stay in China, my mom told me, than Trump’s America. They were in good shape, and I was glad they didn’t need me there.
我时不时会想，如果我的父母当初没有离开云南，会发生什么。他们也经常思考这个问题。
I didn’t dread the virus. I dreaded only the process of reentering China if I departed. One of the core tactics that China used to keep out the virus was to shuttle everyone flying to the country into government-designated quarantine hotels, in which a person would be unable to leave a small room for two or three weeks, depending on the jurisdiction.
我的父母有时会感到后悔。他们移民的时候，正值中国经济真正腾飞之际。当时中国已经加入了世界贸易组织，邓小平的改革也确实释放了全国积蓄已久的创业能量。如果我的父母留在昆明，国家会给他们分配住房。这些房子不像上海或深圳那样价值飞涨，但也能积攒一笔可观的收入。他们也能和父母、兄弟姐妹以及朋友们住得近一些。而且，他们或许还能拥有更好的职业发展，而不是在一个完全陌生的国度重新开始生活。
So I spent my time inside China, doing things like riding my bike from Guiyang to Chongqing. In 2021, I read giant novels like Dickens’s Bleak House and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I also met my now-wife Silvia, a professor at the University of Michigan who was taking a sabbatical at NYU-Shanghai. As an ethnographer of technology cultures, Silvia had lived in China and continued to stay engaged. The United States that Silvia departed in 2021 was still a distressed place, where few people were getting together for in-person contact. She was even more thrilled than usual to be able to return to China for research when she obtained a rare visa. After completing her quarantine, Silvia felt a sense of freedom on Shanghai’s vibrant streets. We got to know each other as we cycled around the city to cafés and dumpling shops.
当我的父母幻想如果当初留下来生活会是什么样子时，他们只需看看其他同学现在的生活就明白了。在中国，同学往往是一辈子的朋友。过了某个年纪，典型的社交活动就是和二三十个同学在宴会厅里聚会，喝得酩酊大醉，回忆往事。环顾宴会桌旁，他们就能感受到自己错过了什么。
But things weren’t completely normal. To enter most public spaces—my office, a restaurant, even many outdoor commercial areas—I had to pull out my phone to display my contact-tracing QR code to the burly man guarding the entrance. Green meant normal, while yellow meant that I had had some degree of proximity to a positive case; one wouldn’t have needed to flash a red code, since the state would probably have hauled that person off to quarantine. The cell towers that triangulated a person’s location and the contact-tracing workforce sometimes produced errors. Merely walking by a restaurant with a known infection might turn your code yellow, even if you never went in. People often complained that no would explain why their code stopped being green. But quarantines and movement restrictions felt like inconveniences worth respecting. Having to fumble for my phone to pull up my contact-tracing app whenever I entered a public space didn’t feel like too big a deal when I looked at how other nations were suffering. China was piling on these controls gradually, so the incremental asks felt more acceptable.
他们的几个同学抓住了这波热潮，利用了中国两大财富创造来源：拥有房产（或参与建设热潮）或拥有工厂（并参与出口热潮）。我父亲在广州上大学，认识不少靠销售家具或其他消费品发家致富的商人。他们并非亿万富翁，但他们有能力在海外置业——有时甚至还能获得投资签证——开德国车，并在心情好的时候出国度假。
But I was aware of the ground shifting under my feet. A big part of my work was to cover US–China relations, which had been unraveling even before the pandemic. Throughout 2020, President Trump lobbed shots at China’s tech companies, which I covered even while travel became more difficult. But what was happening inside China was even more unexpected. Xi Jinping grew bold as China controlled the virus and the rest of the world did not. While he announced a campaign to achieve “common prosperity,” he cracked down on digital platforms and real estate developers. My clients had a lot of questions for me since there were few people they could call who were in China. They asked me how it was possible that after the virus emerged in Wuhan, China seemed to be containing it better than anyone else. I answered them honestly: China was doing well—for now.
我的父母没有创业的头脑。所以他们很可能更像大多数同学那样，靠领工资维持生计。按美国的标准来看，他们的收入并不算高——每月2000美元就算不错了——但他们在昆明附近可能拥有两三套房产，也算得上是一笔不小的财富。变卖一套房产就足以送孩子出国留学：如果房产位于市中心，就去美国；如果位于郊区，就去澳大利亚或加拿大。我的一些大学同学可能属于中下阶层。也许他们生意失败了，也许他们得罪了老板——老板决定不给他们分配公寓——总之，他们除了工资之外一无所有。
In December 2021, we began hearing about the omicron strain of the virus, which scientists told us was so much more transmissible than earlier variants. I wondered about omicron’s effect on China in my annual letter published on the last day of that year. “I worry that it’s so transmissible that the government will . . . implement lockdowns far more severe than anything it has done to this point.” On Twitter, I was more flip: “I prepared three items at home to survive a potentially severe lockdown: mooncakes (high-caloric and long-storing); a bike with a trainer (to cycle through the metaverse); and the Hebrew Bible (Robert Alter translation).”
“当然，我真希望我们从未离开过，”妈妈有时会这样对我和爸爸说。她在省广播电台的朋友们在广播或电视行业都拥有不错的职业生涯，并在国家规定的55岁退休年龄领取退休金。妈妈或许会和她已经退休的护士妹妹一起玩，妹妹每天早上在公园里练太极，晚上则参加合唱团的演出。她会一边照顾年迈的父亲，一边还要应付妈妈的各种折腾。我的父母则可以自由地去尝试新的餐厅，并把大量的空闲时间用来陪伴家人和大学朋友。
Xi’an had already given us a preview of what it took to control a more transmissible strain of the virus. At the end of 2021, the northwestern city entered a lockdown. Residents ran out of food in the middle of winter, and horrific stories started to emerge. A woman who was eight months pregnant felt pains and wanted to be admitted to a hospital but was refused entry by staff until she took a PCR test—which could take several hours to process—and provide a negative result. Two hours later, she started bleeding heavily. She miscarried outside the hospital while pleading to be let in. Her story went viral until censors deleted it.
我爸比较谨慎。“你知道，我们大多数同学都愿意和我们交换位置，”他反驳道。是的，我妈知道。
The pleasures of Shanghai curdled in the spring of 2022. Few people were able to buy seasonal greens or bamboo shoots. The central government had ordered a lockdown for the city of twenty-five million, who were mostly unable to step foot outside their residence for two months. For most of the pandemic, Shanghai distinguished itself by confronting the virus with a light touch. It might have counted as a triumph of the engineering state. Then Shanghai suffered what was probably the most ambitious quarantine that any state has ever attempted.
他们花了很长时间才在西方站稳脚跟。但移民大约二十年后，他们终于跻身中产阶级行列。我爸爸现在在一家保险公司的IT部门工作。我妈妈则待在家里，很高兴能摆脱繁重的工作。他们在宾夕法尼亚的家又像在云南时一样，摆满了书籍。周末，他们会去佩尼帕克步道散步，或者去特拉华水峡公园之类的地方游玩。因为我是独生子女，担心他们独自在家，所以在大学期间养了一条狗，它给他们带来了多年的快乐。像许多移民家庭一样，去Costco购物成了他们周末的固定活动。他们甚至还开始打匹克球。入籍之后，他们俩都参加了2024年的总统选举投票。
Omicron descended on Shanghai as spring commenced. At the start of March 2022, city officials announced that a quarantine hotel holding people flying in from overseas had bungled its safety protocols, leading to the infection of a few cleaning staff, who brought it into their communities. Shanghai implemented its now-familiar pandemic playbook: Authorities conducted mass tests, brought people who tested positive into a centralized quarantine facility (usually a sports stadium or convention center with thousands of beds), tracked the location history of each confirmed case, and imposed a lockdown on the neighborhoods where close contacts lived.
父母移民的最大受益者就是我。我无法想象如果我是在昆明而不是渥太华长大，我会变成什么样。父母告诉我，他们同学的孩子大多没找到有意义的工作，即使是那些去了北京或上海的优秀人才也一样。我的三个堂兄弟姐妹都二十多岁了，还和叔叔阿姨住在一起，因为他们不想把微薄的收入都花在房租上。如果父母没有移民，他们或许也能送我去美国上大学。事实上，他们可能更容易负担得起。但我肯定无法从事我引以为豪的工作，比如写这本书。
The premise of a lockdown was simple: nobody would be allowed to leave their apartments except to have their noses or throats swabbed in a government-administered PCR test. Nearly everyone in Shanghai lives in apartment compounds made up of several buildings with a courtyard below. The building I lived in was a smaller walk-up with six floors that held a couple dozen households. Most people, however, live in taller developments, which could each hold a few hundred households. High-rises might be more desirable in normal times, but I would soon find out how lucky I was to live in a walk-up. Huge developments were exponentially more likely to suffer a lockdown, as a single case could condemn the whole building.
正因为我受益于他们的搬迁，我才感到有些尴尬，甚至有些愧疚。我的父母在物质上比大多数朋友都贫瘠。在很多方面，他们的精神世界也同样贫瘠。他们在费城郊区没交到多少朋友。从他们居住的小区去哪儿都得开车。想去亚洲超市或像样的川菜馆，他们得花两个小时在高速公路上往返新泽西州的普林斯顿。我告诉他们，他们缺乏社交圈主要是他们自己的问题。他们并没有真正努力融入。但他们缺乏融入美国郊区生活的经验，在这个环境中，结识他人并非易事。
Shanghai’s pandemic playbook had halted prior outbreaks. This time it failed. Throughout March, the number of new cases rose each day. Seven-foot-tall plastic barricades sprouted up around apartment compounds throughout the city, signifying a positive case. Restaurants, cafés, and other businesses shuttered. As commercial sounds dimmed, voices from loudspeakers became a constant presence. Several times, they summoned everyone in my compound to go to a nearby facility so that we could all be tested. I never tested positive, thankfully. Nobody I knew did either. If you were positive, the government would take you into a mass quarantine facility; if health authorities suspected you had the virus based on your location history, you might be prohibited from leaving home for a few days. Several of my friends were told they had to stay inside because they were proximate to someone who might have the virus.
那么，为什么我的父母会被同学们羡慕呢？因为他们过着舒适的生活，不必面对即使是富裕的中国人也会遇到的种种问题。中国的中产阶级极易受到北京局势变化的影响。经商者承受着巨大的压力，要应对来自竞争对手或地方政府的威胁。他们隐隐感到，自己呼吸的空气或吃的食物正在缩短他们的寿命。他们对自己的房产价值、经济增长的未来，以及北京是否会给他们或他们的公司带来某种灾难，都充满了深深的不确定感。中国的生活丰富多彩，包罗万象。但家庭和社会的压力可能会让人窒息，而这种“拥抱”有时会不请自来，却又坚定而不可避免地来自国家。对许多中国人来说，即使与社区的关系感觉十分疏远，在美国郊区生活也是值得的。在中国的家庭仍然在思考，他们是否能在国外建立更好的生活，他们问的也是我父母移民前问过的那些问题。几代华人在美国生活繁荣，我确信，部分原因在于两国文化的相似性。数以百万计的人们眺望大洋彼岸，展望未来，权衡利弊，比较异同，扪心自问：那里会更好吗？
By late March, a sense of dread pervaded Shanghai. On a particularly eerie day, Silvia and I heard from three separate friends within the span of an hour that they were no longer able to leave home for three days: A neighbor had been a close contact to a positive case. That morning, Silvia and I cycled to a café near the Embankment Building, an iconic art deco residence that once housed Jewish refugees. We remarked over some croissants that the city had never felt so quiet. As we cycled back home, we saw the Embankment Building transformed. Health workers and police officers had covered the exits and were helping each other put on all-white protective suits held together with blue tape. They looked like they were preparing to lay siege to the building. These workers, nicknamed dabai, or big whites, became dreaded specters that symbolized enforcement of zero-Covid.
我的父母对他们的生活感到一种安于现状的满足。但我却有一个愿望。为了他们好，我希望他们能搬到我最喜欢的纽约街区：日落公园。
In the government’s daily press conferences, Shanghai officials repeatedly denied that they would order a broad lockdown for the city. The situation was in hand, they told us, even though the number of new infections was increasing every day. “Shanghai Has No Plans for City Lockdown” read a headline on March 24 in the state-run China Daily newspaper. Shanghai is “too important to lock down,” claimed Wu Fan, one of the members of the city’s health commission, during a press conference on March 26. Then she added, with a shade of arrogance, “The city of Shanghai does not belong only to the people of Shanghai. It is a driving force for the global economy, and a lockdown here would shake the world.”
从布鲁克林富裕的公园坡社区（那里的褐石住宅售价约为400万美元）向南走，就到了日落公园。这里的房屋不如那些褐石住宅那么漂亮。直到20世纪60年代，日落公园还居住着许多意大利、挪威和芬兰移民，他们在附近的海滨从事海事贸易。如今，这个社区已不再以……为主。这里是新移民的聚居地。联排别墅占据了街道，商业街两旁林立，医生和房地产经纪人用英语、西班牙语和中文做着广告。第五大道上是拉丁裔商铺，而第六、第七和第八大道则以华人商店为主。西侧的街道上摆满了炸猪皮，东侧的街道上则挂满了粤式烤肉架，烤鸭和白斩鸡飘香四溢。西侧出售木瓜和大蕉，东侧则出售榴莲和甜瓜。令人遗憾的是，许多华人商店只收现金，但他们的商品值得你为此去取款机取钱。一些杂货店在秋季出售带有鲜亮橙色蟹黄的中华绒螯蟹，就像你在上海买到的一样。
The day after Wu Fan’s defiant proclamation, Shanghai announced it would lock down. The announcement was ever so softly worded. Shanghai was enacting a “partial pause” to enter a “quiet period” that would last eight days. First the eastern half of the city would enter lockdown, then the western half. The city ordered people to work from home; all businesses would shut down. The bridges and tunnels connecting the two halves of the city (separated by the Huangpu River) were blocked. The government promised to deliver food and ensure medical access. All lockdown measures, they said, would terminate on April 5.
北面是日落公园，整个街区都以此命名，这里可以饱览曼哈顿和纽约港的壮丽景色。公园最引人注目的当属日落游乐中心。该中心拥有公园局长罗伯特·摩西于1936年开放的11个游泳池之一，这些游泳池的设计一如既往地大胆前卫。浴场是一座装饰艺术风格的砖砌建筑，大厅由瓷砖和青石铺成，向上延伸至圆形大厅。在泳池周围，人们可以看到太极拳练习者在练习。无论何时，青少年们都在这里嬉戏玩耍，而家庭则悠闲地漫步其中。
Shanghai’s lockdown extended far beyond that date. Case counts exploded while the city was in its quiet period. Instead of lasting eight days, the lockdown lasted eight weeks, finally reopening in June. I often think about the China Daily headline “Shanghai Has No Plans for City Lockdown.” It could be read in two ways. I first understood it as a denial that the city would impose a lockdown. I understand it now as a totally accurate explanation of what happened next: The city had made no plans for confining twenty-five million people to their homes for eight weeks.
中国人或许会对罗伯特·摩西感到熟悉。他是一位美国城市规划师，以惊人的速度进行建设。摩西身兼数职——有些枯燥乏味（例如公园专员），有些则令人垂涎（例如纽约市规划委员会主席和城市建设协调员）。他推平城市街区，为宏伟的桥梁和高速公路、纽约州北部的广袤公园以及利用尼亚加拉瀑布水力发电的巨型水坝腾出空间，同时也建造了城市急需的各种设施，例如日落游乐中心的游泳池。
Government drones descended throughout the city. Since the start of the pandemic, the state had dispatched megaphone-equipped drones to nag the uncompliant. A person walking without a mask might hear a whirring craft above his head, from which a distorted, barking voice would yell at him to mask up or return home. A Shanghai neighborhood official outlined what would happen if a drone came upon an illegal gathering of people: “The drone will try to dissuade,” in other words, berate them, “and ground forces will be linked in real time.”
我多次恳求父母帮忙搬到日落公园，但他们一直没有回应。我知道他们当时冒了很大的风险——带着年幼的孩子移居国外——而且他们现在已经没有……他们渴望再次经历巨变。但我希望他们最终能去一个比费城郊区更有活力的地方。他们不应该被迫在中国过着典型的生活（那里政治随时可能颠覆人们的生活），还是在美国过着典型的生活（那里大多数人过着略显沉闷的郊区生活）之间做出选择。
An even more bewildering use of drones took place in the early days of the Shanghai lockdown. The city’s top mental health official introduced an unexpectedly sparky phrase in an otherwise drab press conference on the course of the virus, demanding that Shanghainese “repress your soul’s yearning for freedom.” Social media users immediately began to make fun of the phrase by putting it into memes. People weren’t used to poetry from bureaucrats. One night in April, as the lockdown swung into high gear, a drone carrying a megaphone began blasting that message into apartments full of huddling residents: “Repress your soul’s yearning for freedom,” with a woman’s voice played on loop while a light blinked from the drone. “Do not open your windows to sing, which can spread the virus.”
不，并非每个人都必须住在郊区。但美国人常常需要在治理不善的城市和依赖汽车的郊区之间做出选择。我希望有更多像日落公园这样的地方：一个相对经济实惠的社区，位于公共交通发达的城市中心，能够让不同文化背景的人们交流互动。尽管纽约市存在诸多缺陷，但它仍然是美国为数不多的真正意义上的都市之一，人口密集，适宜步行，并具有一定程度的经济融合。然而，我们并没有像罗伯特·摩西那样，继续改善和现代化这些地方，而是让它们处于一种怪异、割裂的状态，同时将国家丰富的人才资源投入到创造新的虚拟世界中。这就是美国人想要的吗？
The phrase stopped being amusing.
2000年代我和父母移民美国时，摩西早已不在人世。他不仅去世了，而且声名狼藉。他毕生追求的目标——通过大规模的政府主导项目来改善社会——也随着他的离世而消逝。我的父母甚至不知道罗伯特·摩西是谁。
Over April 2022, stress in Shanghai spiked to unimaginable levels.
纽约人曾对摩西推崇备至。1974年，罗伯特·卡罗出版了他的传记《权力掮客》，使摩西因其宏伟的计划和同样重大的判断失误而名垂青史。称这部传记为鸿篇巨制都显得不够贴切：卡罗倾注了大量心血和文学功力，将1300页的内容娓娓道来。并非巧合的是，《权力掮客》也是促成律师阶层巩固的书籍之一。它与蕾切尔·卡森的《寂静的春天》和拉尔夫·纳德的《任何速度都不安全》一样，让美国人对工程师产生了恐惧和憎恨。
The primary worry for most people was how to secure food when they could not leave their homes. The surprise lockdown announcement, coming in the evening, gave people in Pudong, in the eastern half of the city, only hours to stock up on food. Puxi, the more populous western half where I lived, had four more days to prepare. Many people had failed to stockpile essential goods, after repeated denials of lockdown by city officials diminished their sense of urgency. Even among people who were able to stock up, it was difficult to keep fruit and vegetables fresh after ten days or so.
必须指出的是，罗伯特·摩西既非律师也非工程师。但作为纽约的“建筑大师”，他集两者于一身，甚至更多。要了解这位“权力掮客”，可以从几个方面入手：摩西的官方头衔；他的建设项目，包括桥梁、高速公路和纽约地标；以及他的错误、缺陷和偏见，这些都使他的名字成为反对城市变革的代名词。正如卡罗所揭示的，摩西是一个精英主义者，为了中产阶级的利益，他不惜推平贫民窟。他傲慢自大，不愿让任何人参与公共利益的解读，尤其是不愿让普通民众参与。他暗中打压任何胆敢反对他计划的人——无论贫富贵贱。尽管他充满热情，但也饱受种族主义和报复心的折磨。
The Shanghai government had promised to make food deliveries. It started out okay: Everyone I know in Shanghai received a handful of packages featuring a welcome but random assortment of fruits, vegetables, and meat. But government deliveries quickly ran out of steam. On April 5, when the lockdown was supposed to end, Shanghai announced that it would need to be extended. That’s when food concerns heightened. By mid-April, nearly all of my friends had experienced at least a few days of food insecurity. Two sets of parents told me that they forfeited their own meals to save food for their young children. When Emma, an American friend of mine, opened her government-organized food delivery, she discovered a freshly slaughtered chicken, still with a few feathers on it. She had no idea how to prepare it; she also had nothing else to eat. So she went to YouTube. After psyching herself up, she pulled up a video to learn how to gut a chicken, grimacing as she eviscerated it.
这本书初版时，似乎颇具预见性。《权力掮客》的副标题可谓恰如其分地反映了当时的时代背景：罗伯特·摩西与纽约的衰落。20世纪70年代的纽约可谓是臭名昭著，城市动荡不安，濒临破产。在卡罗笔下最引人入胜的章节之一中，日落公园被描述为一个无可救药的贫民窟。摩西几乎没怎么关注过这片街区，就将一条高架高速公路建在了它最繁忙的商业街之上。用卡罗生动的笔触来形容，这条高速公路如同掏空了街区的心脏，为了方便货车通行，芬兰餐馆和挪威商店纷纷搬迁。随着高速公路的修建，商业也随之消失，整个社区逐渐走向衰败。
Without help from the government, people tried to place orders on grocery delivery platforms. They became immediately overwhelmed. The thing to do was to set a lot of alarms—6:00 a.m. for Meituan, 6:30 a.m. for DingDong, 7:00 a.m. for Freshippo, 8:00 a.m. for Yonghui—to place an order in the half minute before all the food was snapped up on these platforms. The food supply chain broke down for several reasons. One of them was that the state made it difficult for truckers to bring food into Shanghai, fearing that they could bring the virus across vast distances. To cross a province, truckers often had to wait in lines, remaining in their cabs until their Covid test results were available. One viral video showed a driver holding up bottles of his own excrement because traffic control would not permit him to exit. He exploded in frustration that the controls made him feel like an “animal in captivity.” These strictures drove many to quit. In mid-April, trucking activity in Shanghai was only 15 percent of its normal level.
如今漫步在日落公园那些售卖馅饼和面条的餐馆，这里的居民如果得知他们的社区曾被彻底摧毁，一定会感到难以置信。摩西修建的高速公路依然屹立。工薪阶层的移民也依然生活在这里，只是现在当地人说的是西班牙语、粤语或普通话。摩西为社区建造的日落游乐中心也依然存在，如今正被新一代的家庭享用。它并没有像人们预想的那样彻底坍塌。日落公园虽然失去了往日的活力，却依然屹立不倒。它之所以能屹立不倒，是因为这个社区的规模远超单一的建筑项目。它也之所以能屹立不倒，是因为移民们仍然在美国寻求更好的生活。我非常乐意让我的父母在日落公园安家。这将使他们更接近那些他们如今已无法触及的中国美好事物：一个适宜步行的社区，在那里他们可以找到自己喜爱的美食；一个很棒的公园，在那里他们可以练习太极拳或打匹克球；还可以乘坐地铁前往纽约市的各个角落，逛逛书店，参加各种文化活动。
Much of the food that made it into cities rotted before it could be delivered to residents. The responsibility for organizing food deliveries fell to Shanghai’s neighborhood committees, the lowest level of officialdom, which had been staffed mostly with elderly volunteers more used to propaganda work than the intensive engagement with Excel spreadsheets that the logistics of food parcels demanded. The state also immobilized normally robust food courier services. Delivery workers wearing mustard yellow or baby blue uniforms, carrying food inside a box strapped to the backs of their scooters, faced lockdowns too. A few made the choice to be homeless in order to continue work. At the cost of sleeping under bridges or in other public spaces, they were able to roam around the city, delivering food to earn higher commissions.
《权力掮客》这本书已经过时了。纽约或许有缺陷，但它并没有衰落。这座城市从悬崖边走了回来，而底特律、圣路易斯和克利夫兰等工业城市却没能做到这一点。自20世纪50年代以来，这些城市已经失去了三分之二的人口，而纽约却通过吸引工人阶级和富裕阶层而不断发展壮大。
Shanghainese marveled that they could worry about hunger while they lived in China’s richest city in the year 2022. People muttered darkly that China had achieved “common prosperity,” Xi Jinping’s new signature initiative to reduce inequality, in China’s most capitalist city a decade ahead of schedule. Though some people connected to the government might have had better access to food, nearly everyone—rich and poor, young and old, local and foreign—was in the same hungry boat. Celebrities complained online that they had to spend nearly $300 to have some vegetables and eggs delivered. One of the country’s top venture capitalists, who was an investor in grocery delivery companies, sent a message on social media asking people how to get food.
和许多建筑师一样，摩西也曾抱有偏见，犯下过许多严重的错误。他的统治结束得恰到好处：像简·雅各布斯和路易斯·芒福德这样的批评家在他又一次修建高速公路彻底摧毁曼哈顿下城之前，就叫停了他无休止的建设项目。但他留下的充满活力的建设遗产，也推动了纽约发展成为如今的国际化大都市。摩西对如何吸引家庭来到这座城市的思考远比批评者们所认为的要深刻得多。他建造的文化中心也为这座城市增添了光彩，使其至今仍然吸引着众多创意人才。
After complaints about hunger grew louder, the Communist Party responded with a time-tested tactic: scapegoating. State media publicized a few cases in which food deliveries were hoarded by residents rather than being distributed to their neighbors. These cases might have been real, but they weren’t the main problem. The fundamental issue was that the surprise lockdown announcement had deeply broken Shanghai’s food supply chain, crippling both long-distance and local deliveries.
自20世纪60年代以来，纽约失去的是其物理环境的更新。这座城市仍然依赖于摩西时代结束后就已停滞的基础设施，这让我觉得继续践踏摩西的名号并无益处。纽约乃至整个美国都无法永远依靠近一个世纪前建造的基础设施生存下去。建设过程中总是存在着权衡和妥协。大规模公共工程，我们不应该诋毁过去那些做出艰难抉择的人，而应该自己勇敢面对这些艰难抉择。
In the latter half of April, people found a lifeline. My friend Owen had moved to Shanghai from Beijing just a few months before the start of the lockdown. An American in his early thirties, Owen went to work at a policy research outfit in Beijing after graduating from college. He lived on his own in a modest walk-up, above a noodle shop, that looked out toward a small supermarket. Since Owen lived in Puxi, he had more time to stock up before he was locked down. The day after the announcement, he woke up early to go to the grocery store, finding a long line even before doors opened. He managed to snatch a few bags of fresh vegetables along with ground beef. These he cooked into a bolognese sauce, which he kept frozen in several parcels.
美国之所以衰弱，不仅是因为左翼过于注重形式——他们一心只想避免重蹈摩西的覆辙，以至于鲜有伟大的工程得以建成——也因为右翼不加思考的破坏行为。我之所以提及摩西，是为了表明美国左翼需要振作起来，着手解决当今的问题，而不是纠缠于上世纪中叶的问题。
Shortly after the lockdown began, Owen received a generous bag of government-sent rations: peppers, tomatoes, bok choy, garlic, ginger, potatoes, and more. A smaller bag arrived the following week. Then nothing. For weeks, the government dropped off no new food. Owen began trying each day to book a grocery delivery but never succeeded. Everyone else in the city was trying to do the same, fighting for a small pool of available food. After a few days without success, he thought to himself, “This could be bad.”
我希望美国右翼人士能够记住，政府的力量可以创造奇迹。2025年，科技右翼人士正在庆祝埃隆·马斯克的成就，而他创立的政府效率部（DOGE）却试图削弱联邦政府。不可否认，美国政府的效率低下令人震惊，但它也曾创造过令人惊叹的科技成就。如果左翼人士能够正视罗伯特·摩西，那么右翼人士也应该正视海曼·里科弗海军上将——这位工程师通过一项大规模的政府主导项目提升了国家安全。
Owen wrote his WeChat handle onto a slip of paper and taped it outside his door. WeChat is the universal chat app in China, and a typical person belongs to several dozen chat groups: family, colleagues, other school parents, board game enthusiasts, friends from college, any group with activities to coordinate. Since Owen lived on the lowest residential floor, just above the shops, everyone was able to see his WeChat handle when they passed by to take Covid tests. Soon enough, the whole building added him, and he formed a groupchat for its thirty-six households. Owen didn’t seek to be his building’s unofficial representative. As a tall dude with blue eyes who had just moved to Shanghai, he wasn’t the likeliest spokesperson for his all-Chinese building. “After my neighbors added me,” Owen told me, “their attitude was ‘what’s the plan, bro’?” He became the point person for communicating with authorities as well as the ringleader for organizing communal functions.
里科弗被誉为核动力海军之父，他于1954年下水了“鹦鹉螺”号潜艇。这是世界上第一艘核动力潜艇，能够在水下航行数周（而柴油动力潜艇只能在水下停留数小时），这在它首次亮相时，对苏联构成了决定性的优势。他是一位追求完美的工程师，拥有足够的耐心，在政府部门工作数十年，最终实现了他的愿景。里科弗打造的潜艇舰队至今仍是美国海军的骄傲。二战期间，工业家们进入政府部门，扩大飞机和海军的生产规模。美国政府集中资源完成了伟大的技术任务，例如制造原子弹的曼哈顿计划和将人类送上月球的阿波罗计划。如此巨大的技术壮举，只有通过政府才能实现。
Neighbors were able to coordinate help for each other in this WeChat group, even elderly ones (though they might be digitally represented by a son or daughter who wasn’t living with them). The chat’s most important function was to arrange group buying, which Owen accomplished by placing bulk orders directly from a wholesaler. Somehow, food deliveries were possible that way. The system eased hunger through the latter half of April, though it still had a lot of problems. Bulk orders demanded averaging out food preferences; everyone wanted eggs, but not all foreigners could convince their Chinese neighbors that butter was necessary too. One day Owen found himself craving good bread, a luxury that his neighbors wouldn’t have agreed to. He bought some from a home baker across town, at $40 a loaf.
我之所以想起罗伯特·摩西和海曼·里科弗，并非因为他们心地善良。他们都对权力有着不为人知的渴望。两人都是理想主义者，却又行事强硬。巧合的是，他们也都是犹太人，在原本应是高雅的机构中都遭遇过歧视：摩西在耶鲁大学，里科弗在美国海军。他们也都是忠诚的公职人员，毕生致力于为政府建造伟大的工程。里科弗和摩西做到了如今公职人员中已难觅踪迹的事情：他们年复一年地按时按预算完成项目，同时又避免了贪污指控。
Once food arrived downstairs, a rotating cast of volunteers delivered it throughout the building. Some walk-ups agreed to prohibit, for example, the purchase of plastic jugs of water, since it was unfair for neighbors to lug them up flights of stairs. Owen only sometimes volunteered for these jobs, since he still had a day job to do at a public affairs company. My friends felt they had to do two full-time jobs: their regular one and the many hours a day spent trying to procure food necessities. Bulk orders weren’t possible for everyone. Smaller buildings didn’t have enough residents to place egg orders by the thousands. And the system disfavored the elderly, who struggled to navigate mobile purchases.
在当今时代，仍然有很多极具远见和干劲的人。只不过，像埃隆·马斯克这样的人，更倾向于创办科技公司或对冲基金，而不是为公共利益服务。或者像政府效率部（DOGE）这样的部门。政府效率部（DOGE）招致了人们对政府的蔑视，削减了核心机构和服务。像马斯克这样的亿万富翁真的比美国上一代建设者更有责任感吗？我认为他们只是更令人厌恶而已。美国右翼的问题不在于他们想要提高政府效率，而在于他们将效率低下的原因归咎于员工懒惰，而不是公务员们繁琐的程序。如果政府效率部（DOGE）的目标是精简流程而不是裁员，它会更加有效。
While Shanghai was in strict lockdown through April, the number of new infections kept rising. The lockdown extension surprised no one. Everyone knew that lockdowns wouldn’t end until numbers dropped to zero.
我希望美国右翼人士能够记住，政府同样有能力创造伟大的成就。如果雄心勃勃的人大多在消费互联网公司工作，那么彼得·蒂尔那句“我们想要的是飞行汽车，结果却得到了140个字符”的讽刺之语中蕴含的失望也就不足为奇了。为美国各州默哀吧：它们在被左翼扼杀和拖垮之后，又被右翼肆无忌惮的破坏倾向所伤。
I asked Owen why so many people still caught the virus during lockdown. “It was for sure due to the tests,” he replied. People had to report for Covid testing nearly every day, sometimes twice a day. A medical team would enter an apartment compound and summon everyone downstairs, either on WeChat or with a bullhorn. Anyone who didn’t come down would receive a buzz on the downstairs gate; if that didn’t work, they would hear a knock on their door. It was absurd that elderly people—some of whom rarely left their apartments without a pandemic—were squeezed into elevators with neighbors.
中美之间的最终较量，并非取决于哪个国家拥有最大的工厂或最高的企业估值。这场较量最终的赢家将是那些最能造福于民的国家。美国拥有对中国深远而持久的优势。但这个工程强国手中握有一张王牌：它能够驾驭物质世界的活力。中国拥有更强大的制造业能力、更完善的基础设施、更雄厚的国防工业基础以及更充足的住房。如果美国能够在保持多元化的同时不断建设，那么在未来一个世纪里，它就能证明自己才是更强大的国家。
It’s impossible for anyone to be certain how exactly they caught the virus. Perhaps omicron was so transmissible that people caught it through the plumbing or ventilation systems that connect people in Shanghai’s apartments. Perhaps it spread through food deliveries. Most people believe they caught it through the daily testing regime: from a neighbor while they were waiting in line. Every so often, a story popped up that the medical worker swabbing everyone’s throats had the virus himself, which at least contaminated your sample and perhaps infected you. Despite exacting measures, the number of new confirmed cases kept rising for four weeks until the end of the lockdown.
目前，美国正面临困境。如果物质世界持续欠发达，美国将无法应对气候变化，无法推动经济发展，也无法实现更广泛的社会平等。美国政府若能证明其政治体系有能力为人民提供基本服务，包括安全的公共街道、运转良好的公共交通和充足的住房，其治理能力将更加强大。为了充分实现美国的各项理想，美国需要重拾其建设精神，我相信这将解决其大部分经济问题，以及许多政治问题。
Many people feared the virus itself: For two years, the Chinese government did everything it could to frighten people about getting Covid. Censors stepped in to make sure that no one called it “just a cold.” If one tested positive for the virus, life became a lot more complicated. The Chinese government did not permit people who tested positive to stay in their homes. Since the early days of the Wuhan outbreak in 2020, authorities realized that someone who had the virus inevitably gave it to their entire household and perhaps the entire building. Health authorities came to take the infected away to one of the huge, centralized quarantine facilities. It wasn’t fun to be in these places. A producer from CNN who tested positive for the virus described the unpleasantness of living in Shanghai’s largest convention center, which hosted fifty thousand beds. She described lights that never turned off, loudspeakers demanding that everyone show up for PCR tests at 6:00 a.m., and everywhere the stench of toilets or unwashed laundry.
如果美国能够恢复制造业，它就会更强大。如果美国无法恢复制造业能力，它将继续被中国强行去工业化。如果世界各地的人们觉得驾驶中国汽车、使用中国机器人和乘坐中国飞机更有吸引力，美国的全球影响力将会下降。如果北京认为美国没有足够的舰艇和弹药来应对其在台湾或南海的侵略行为，世界将会更加危险。如果这两个超级大国在东亚开战，美国能否获胜尚不明朗。美国必须加强自身建设，以避免在商业或军事上被中国超越。
After taking the infected to quarantine facilities, health authorities entered people’s homes to sanitize them. That meant dousing everything in disinfectant—furniture, books, electronics, clothing, the piano. Pet owners faced a particular dilemma. They might ask a neighbor to look after a cat or dog while they were away in quarantine. Those who couldn’t find help decided, painfully, to release their pet into the streets and hope for the best. It was that or leave it indoors, somehow providing enough food to sustain it through the uncertain length of the owner’s quarantine period. A viral video of a dabai chasing down a corgi with a shovel, striking it until it lay prone, did not make the decision any easier.
如果美国建造更多住房，它将会更加强大。美国进步人士常说，每个亿万富翁都是政策失败的产物。但我更关心普通民众的福祉，因此我提出一项修正案：每一次房价上涨都是政策失败。那些就业岗位大量涌现的繁荣地区——尤其是纽约、旧金山和波士顿——却恰恰是阻碍新建住房的最大推手。总体而言，一半的美国租房者都面临着沉重的租金负担（意味着他们将税前收入的30%以上用于支付房租），许多想要购买首套房的人也买不起。新房建设的匮乏将人们拒之于拥有优质就业机会的城市之外，加剧了阶级和种族隔离。
Parents of young children were even more frightened. Shanghai practiced a policy of separating babies and infants from parents, even if both tested positive. Photos spread of infants crying as they were held in metal cribs, while panicked parents told media that they hadn’t received updates from hospital staff on the status of their children for days. One woman told a reporter that the virus no longer frightens her. “Separation from my loved ones scares me more than anything else.” After an outcry online, the city dropped its policy of isolating children.
如果美国能够提供更好的基础设施，它将会更加强大。尽管纽约拥有公共交通系统，但其中大部分建于一个世纪前，以至于进入曼哈顿的地铁站常常感觉像是坠入一个腐朽的深渊，人们站在垃圾和令人担忧的漏水处，直到一声震耳欲聋的金属尖啸响起，列车才驶来。这并非是纽约市在这些问题上投入不足：纽约拥有全球六个最昂贵的交通项目中的五个。在纽约市建造一公里地铁的成本是巴黎的五倍。如果成本只是巴黎的两倍，那或许会成为一场国家悲剧；但既然成本是巴黎的五倍，那就仅仅是一个统计数字而已。没有任何理由可以解释为什么一些历史更悠久的欧洲城市能够比纽约更便宜地建造地铁。而那些掌权者似乎对此束手无策。
One day, Owen felt a slight pain below his abdomen. When he looked down, he saw a bump the size of a small fist between his right thigh and his groin. Googling suggested that it was a hernia: Part of Owen’s small intestine popped out and couldn’t be tucked back in. It’s not an uncommon problem for men, though usually not until they’re older. The good thing was that the bump didn’t cause too much pain. He’s still unsure how it developed. Possibly, he told me, from a strong sneeze, compounded by all the stress while being overwhelmingly sedentary.
值得肯定的是，拜登政府认真尝试推行产业政策并建设美国基础设施。但建设速度极其缓慢。2021年，国会拨款420亿美元用于扩大农村社区的宽带服务，这是一项计划的一部分。这项名为“全民互联网”的计划，四年过去了，没有一户家庭接入该网络。国会拨款75亿美元用于在全美各地建设电动汽车充电站，两年后仅有七个投入使用。如此缓慢的建设进度对民主党来说是一次政治上的失败：特朗普总统在赢得2024年大选后，要么能够通过以自己的名字命名众多新桥梁来获取政治利益，要么会取消其中一些项目。
Owen decided not to seek medical attention. It was nearly impossible to get to a hospital. One of the stories that provoked wide outrage was the case of an asthmatic forty-nine-year-old nurse in Shanghai, who was denied treatment at the hospital where she worked before she collapsed and died. People with health conditions were gripped by fear that their medications would run out: Attempting to procure them might have constituted yet another full-time job. One of my colleagues told me that her uncle with diabetes died during Shanghai’s lockdown because he could not access dialysis treatment. People marveled that hospitals more or less ignored every medical condition aside from Covid infections.
2019年，众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯(Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)的一段言论迅速走红网络。当时她抨击那些阻碍绿色转型的人：“如果我们不解决气候变化问题，世界将在12年内毁灭，”她说，“而你们最大的问题竟然是：我们该如何支付这笔费用？” 看看纽约的交通项目，修建一英里地铁就要花费数十亿美元，你不能就此断定市政府不愿出资。真正的问题在于，政府总是自乱阵脚。如果世界没有像奥卡西奥-科尔特斯指出的那样面临气候危机，那么美国建设速度如此缓慢或许还不算什么大问题。美国已经忘记的是，公众或许更希望政府能够有所作为，而不是一个过于注重形式主义的政府。当公共工程严重超支，当国家勉强能够维护现有基础设施，当新列车或新车站的建设时间表可能要十年以上才能实现时，我们不得不质疑目前的做法是否合适。
There was no universal experience of the Shanghai lockdown. The city of twenty-five million people dealt with situations ranging from the nightmarish to the merely difficult. Not everyone experienced hunger: Certain compounds found fairly regular access to food, especially if a government official lived in the building. Introverts found ways to create structure in their lives. After the lockdown, people got to know the neighbors they had previously interacted with only on WeChat. Even for those who found it all bearable, the challenge was that no one knew how long the lockdown might last. Neighborhood officials grew uncommunicative, mostly because they had little idea of when the lockdown would end. Perhaps the most unnerving features of the pandemic were the frequently changing government policies. People had little idea when they would be able to go outside for anything other than lining up for a Covid test, while they spent exorbitantly on food chosen by their neighbors and tried to stay sane and healthy.
美国要想取得成功，无需照搬中国的建设模式。本书详细阐述了工程强国的模式如何造成了种种惨痛的后果，即便在中国也已不再适用。相反，美国可以借鉴其他西方国家，例如西班牙、德国和日本，这些国家在公众咨询和环境评估与项目建设之间取得了更好的平衡。
For many, there was nothing to do but stay glued to their phones all day, idly scrolling through entertainment or frantically attempting to secure a grocery delivery. Or they spent time on social media. A lot of what we know from Shanghai’s lockdown comes from the videos shared on WeChat, Weibo, and other platforms.
为了实现这一切，我建议——非常温和地——逐步放松律师在美国的主导地位。这将要求我们正视政府和整个社会中存在的程序主义。这也将要求我们重拾对政府机构提供基本服务的信心。
The bulk of Shanghai’s population experienced at least a few moments of immense frustration. Banging pots and pans during the night became a much-shared form of protest. A few videos portrayed whole buildings of people engaging in cathartic screaming (which might explain why the government sent drones instructing people to stop “singing”). Someone shot a video of a woman wandering stark naked around her courtyard. Many videos purported to show the aftermath of people who committed suicide by leaping from their high-rise to the ground below. People shared videos of others screaming denunciations of the police or the regime. A couple who had tested negative for the virus filmed themselves confronting a police officer who insisted on taking them to a quarantine facility. When they showed him their negative test results, he replied, “You are positive if I say you’re positive.”
我承认，要让美国政治机构摆脱法学院的控制并非易事。法学院不仅建立了一条将毕业生输送到联邦司法系统的管道，而且雄心勃勃的学生也为进入白宫和行政部门铺平了道路。改变美国法律更根本的哲学基础更是难上加难。美国继承了英语国家典型的普通法体系，在这个体系中，法官相对于立法机构拥有更大的自由裁量权来塑造法律。英语国家（包括英国、新西兰和爱尔兰）的住房和基础设施成本居高不下绝非偶然。
China’s already formidable censorship regime distinguished itself in this crisis, meeting the challenge with a staggering response. Complaints and protest videos were deleted quickly after they went viral. When Shanghai residents posted en masse the first line of China’s national anthem, “Arise, you who refuse to be slaves,” their posts were removed. Censors took down posts spreading a National People’s Congress spokesperson’s remark that quarantines may be unlawful. At one point, social media platforms blocked the word “Shanghai” from search results.
美国无法通过辩论那些令法学生兴奋不已的问题——例如某个特定案件的正确判决或最高法院大法官的个人魅力——来克服律师主导的社会。我想引用格兰特·吉尔摩教授的一句经典名言，这句话出自一本常被指定为法学院一年级学生阅读教材的书籍：“社会越糟糕，法律就越多。地狱里除了法律什么也没有，正当程序将被一丝不苟地遵守。”
One video managed to achieve censorship escape velocity. Someone (or a group of people) collated a chronological montage of audio clips into a video titled “Voices of April.” The six-minute clip included Wu Fan’s remark that Shanghai was too important to lock down; shouts of people demanding food; a man pleading for his sick father to have medical treatment; exhausted officials saying there was nothing they could do. “Voices of April” dominated my WeChat feed for a few days. People put more effort into sharing that video than anything else in an attempt to circumvent censorship. They even put it on the blockchain, where it will remain for posterity.
相反，我希望美国人能够体验到上一代中国人所感受到的：一种对未来充满乐观的心态，而这种乐观很大程度上源于经济的蓬勃发展。过去四十年里，经历了国家经济飞速增长的中国人，既为过去感到自豪，也对未来充满希望。当重庆或深圳的居民亲眼目睹一座座崭新的城市景观在眼前展开时，他们期待着未来能够持续朝着更好的方向发展。
By late April, most of my foreign friends—especially those with children—departed China, a few for good. Pricey plane tickets were the least of their concerns. To depart from their apartments and get to the airport, people had to sign affidavits swearing not to return to their residence. A taxi to the airport that costs $30 in normal times shot up to $300 because only a few cars and buses were permitted to pick up passengers.
我父母移民时，中国经济年增长率超过10%；如果他们留在昆明，大约每七年他们就会感觉像住在一个新的城市，因为经济翻一番需要七年时间。每次他们回国探望父母，发现一座崭新、更干净、更美好的城市。这样的增长速度超出了美国最狂野的想象，也超出了中国的能力范围。但这个工程强国仍在继续建造大型工程，因为其政治经济体系完全支持这种建设。我的父母放弃了在中国的生活，来到费城郊区享受宁静舒适的生活。这对我们来说是件好事，但我们都觉得美国已经变得明显缺乏雄心壮志。
The number of new infections in Shanghai peaked in late April. Food logistics improved through May, such that Morgan Stanley was able to do what an American bank does: deliver extravagant gifts to select clients. One of my friends received such a package and told me that it included a crayfish salad, which felt like an absurd luxury at that moment. On June 1, the government gingerly allowed the city to return to normal.
前进的道路要求我们重拾乐观精神：具备制定计划并付诸实施的能力。美国必须做到两点才能克服律师主导的社会现状。
Shanghai’s lockdown was one of the major turns in the dramatic arc of China’s pandemic experience. Over the three years of the pandemic, the emotional lives of people across the country veered from fury to pride to desperation.
首先，我们必须记住，美国拥有悠久的工程传统。美国建造了许多美丽的城市，遍布宏伟的建筑。整个十九世纪，美国在这些城市中创造了无数工程奇迹：连接布鲁克林和曼哈顿的当时世界上最长的悬索桥（后来被金门大桥超越），芝加哥世界上第一批摩天大楼，以及堪比欧洲任何地铁线路的纽约地铁。美国建造了桥梁、隧道、高速公路和铁路。它展现了卓越的科技成就，例如建造了核动力潜艇舰队，以及将人类送上月球表面的航天器。
The first act took place over the early days of 2020. I was living in Beijing and watched as the city descended into anxiety as we heard about the coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan. By the start of February, Beijing’s streets were empty while Wuhan’s were positively grim. We were galled by the death of Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who faced police reprimands when he attempted to warn people of a new respiratory virus. On February 7, he died from the coronavirus that he attempted to warn people about. That night, my WeChat feed was dominated by tributes to Doctor Li, accompanied by immense fury at how the police had treated him. I wouldn’t see my WeChat feed be so dominated by a single event until “Voices of April” two years later.
其次，美国需要提升精英阶层中更多元化的声音。美国最重要的美德是对多元化的承诺——即不同文化在平等保护下共存并繁荣发展的能力。这意味着律师应该与工程师、经济学家和其他人文领域的专家携手合作，确保国家能够为大多数人服务，而不仅仅是少数人。
Officials in Wuhan suppressed news about the new virus circulating in their city for the most picayune of reasons: They wanted to ensure the smooth operation of an annual political meeting. In those crucial early days of the pandemic, they wanted to hear no news that anything was amiss, especially not since the Lunar New Year was about to begin. Wuhan officials refused to call off a community feast that attracted a hundred thousand people only six miles away from the Huanan Seafood Market, where the coronavirus was already circulating. At the Lunar New Year gala, state media praised performers for helping the show go on even while they were sick.
世界银行将中国在2025年列为“中等偏上收入”国家，几年后中国将跨越“高收入”门槛。北京不会为此庆祝。“无论中国经济未来如何发展，无论其国际地位如何变化，北京都不会为此庆祝。”2023年，中共宣传机构大肆宣扬：“中国将永远是一个发展中国家。”
Beijing felt grayer and colder in February 2020. Nearly all restaurants and public spaces were closed. My friends and I went out on bike rides across mostly empty streets. Meanwhile, frightening images were spilling out of Wuhan. The official narrative I heard in Beijing was of heroic sacrifice. Some of the images that state media released were inspiring: Authorities livestreamed a dozen excavators that built a new hospital in eleven days. But videos of nurses crying while having their heads shaved (to prevent virus transmission) did not make good propaganda. The unofficial narratives were far more heartbreaking. One forty-two-year-old woman living not far from Beijing produced one-line snapshots of personal stories that she posted on social media:
我觉得这很美。
The one following a hearse in the deep of night, calling out “Mama” in grief.
The 12-year-old who went alone to report their orphan status after their entire family died.
The one who was forced to write “You must wear a mask when you leave the house” 100 times by the local police.
The one who carried their mother on their back while searching everywhere for treatment, walking for three hours.
The one who recovered from a severe case only to come home to find their entire family dead, who hung themselves from the roof.
这份声明是中国为使世界贫困国家相信中国会维护它们利益而进行的一场玩世不恭的外交努力的一部分。但这并非我所看重的。相反，我认为中国宣布自己是“发展中国家”是明智之举。美国也应该这样做。难道这不比做一个“发达国家”更好吗？“发达国家”意味着你已经走到了尽头，一切都结束了。在我看来，“发达国家”这个头衔还是留给欧洲那座美丽的、如同陵墓般的经济体吧。
过去四十年，中国的发展历程与十九世纪末的美国颇为相似。两国都在摸索着迈向超级大国的地位。那是一个缔造伟大成就的时代，但同时也充斥着骗子和诈骗犯，他们以各种虚假的投资项目为幌子，骗取人们的毕生积蓄。两国都专注于扩大现有技术的规模，而非进行伟大的创新科学研究。在这段时期，两国都不是新产品的发明家。相反，它们窃取并抄袭了真正的科学创新者：十九世纪末的英国和德国，以及二十一世纪初的西方世界。
随后，美国走出了镀金时代。民众对那些强盗大亨及其对政治体系的掌控，即便曾经有过一丝好感，如今也已荡然无存。美国进步人士发起了一系列改革，力图引领国家走上正轨。美国利用其变革的决心，改善公务员制度，在其广袤的领土上兴建新城，并证明民主国家并非军事弱国。
这种对变革的承诺是美国和中国共同的意识形态。美国作为一个国家，具有鲜明的意识形态特征，其立国之本是价值观和原则，而非传统；而现代中国则致力于证明其历史遗产的辉煌。两国都秉持着自我变革的精神。这些国家已经以各种方式发生了畸形。为了充分发挥人民的潜力，两国都必须找到充分表达其变革诉求的方法。
促使邓小平启动改革开放进程的部分原因在于他对发达国家的考察：一次参观德克萨斯州超市的经历，琳琅满目的商品令他目不暇接；当他听说日本日产汽车的一名工人一年能生产94辆汽车，而中国一名工人一年却只能生产一辆时，他意识到这就是现代化。如今，情况发生了逆转。中国承担着高度复杂的任务，而美国人则应该带着惊叹的表情注视着这一切，思考自己是否也能恢复到这种能力。
共产党表达其变革诉求的方式是自上而下地组织集中式的鼓舞人心的运动，以此来实现共产主义目标，并最终实现经济增长。1980年邓小平成为中国最高领导人时，人们完全有理由预期他会失败。中国刚刚经历了毛泽东时代惨痛的乌托邦实验。邓小平在推行经济改革的同时，也推出了恐怖的独生子女政策。在接下来的十五年里，改革开放遭遇了重创，尤其是在1989年邓小平下令军队清剿北京示威者之后。但此后，经济增长确实取得了显著成效。
Then she stopped posting. Police in her hometown published a notice a few months later that she was guilty of spreading rumors and sentenced her to six months in jail.
这一切最终指向的问题是：谁更有利于未来发展？
Xi Jinping declared controlling the coronavirus to be a people’s war, a Maoist term that promised to smash imperialist invaders with guerrilla maneuvers. The state marshaled hefty men, dabai, dressing them in ill-fitting white uniforms and arming them with temperature scanners to check whether people entering buildings had a fever. Crimson propaganda banners that previously declared the superiority of socialism were replaced by ones urging people to stay indoors. The government pulled out all the stops to prevent people from traveling across the country. It halted train services, preventing the millions of migrant workers who traveled home to celebrate Lunar New Year from returning to their workplace. And it blocked nearly all international flights. The trickle of people entering the country were mostly Chinese nationals who could accept living for up to three weeks in quarantine hotels.
过去四十年来，北京一直非常认真地对待未来。正因如此，中国才无法在竞争中胜过美国。工程技术国家取得了巨大的成就。但中国共产党内部有太多领导人不信任自己的人民，也缺乏与世界其他国家沟通的能力。他们将继续用僵化的思维方式解决自身的问题，试图通过工程手段消除挑战，最终导致局面恶化。情况比他们发现时更糟。北京永远无法借鉴美国最宝贵的品质：拥抱多元化和个人权利。共产党太害怕中国人民，不敢赋予他们真正的自主权。北京不会承认，它正在驱逐出境的那些创意人士和企业家并非敌人。它不会接受，他们的创造力能够像伟大的公共工程一样，为中国带来同样的声望。
I felt baffled and angry that winter. Covid-19 was China’s third epidemic in three decades, exploding in exactly the same pattern as the previous two. In the 1990s, Henan province suffered an AIDS outbreak after blood banks reused needles and commingled diseased blood with healthy blood; the government spent years silencing whistleblowers in this slower-moving epidemic before finally confronting the problem. In 2003, officials in Beijing and Guangdong attempted to suppress news of the SARS outbreak before moving decisively to control it.
但美国仍然可以从中国这个工程强国身上学到一些东西。尽管创意阶层渴望发展，但中国大部分民众都能广泛受益。民众对政府的认同感依然很强，原因在于中国人的生活水平得到了极大的提高，大多数人在生活中拥有足够的空间去做自己想做的事情。过去几十年的希望在习近平的领导下有所消退，这也是中国无法在竞争中超越美国的一个重要原因。但习近平仍然可以依靠中国诸多优势的势头，推动这个工程强国在未来十年取得令人瞩目的建设成就。
A year before the coronavirus spread from Wuhan, China’s top disease control official, George Gao, offered a boast: “I am very confident to say that SARS-like outbreaks will not occur again because the infectious disease surveillance system network of our country is well established.” Gao had it right when he said that China had developed a technically impressive disease surveillance system. What he failed to factor in were the weaknesses in China’s political system, in which local officials prevented health workers from reporting the disease. Rather, Wuhan officials directed police to punish medical whistleblowers. And so China faced its worst public health crisis yet.
美国不仅丧失了建设能力，而且在某种程度上也丧失了治理能力。过于注重程序的左派和破坏性的右派剥夺了民众对实体活力的渴望。但美国拥有多元价值观，这使它更有能力找到正确的解决方案。
The second act of the pandemic began in March 2020. The authoritarian impulse to suppress bad news produced a catastrophe; then the restrictions that the state imposed on daily life beat back the virus. While life was starting to return to normal for those of us in Beijing, Covid-19 had slammed into the rest of the world. And though none of us forgot our anger with how it all started, people inside China watched as much wealthier governments bungled their own pandemic response. Local officials in Wuhan and Hubei province weren’t the only ones who denied the seriousness of the virus; few global leaders took it seriously. While the engineering state activated every sinew of its powers to break the transmission of the virus, most other governments were treating Covid almost as if it were a curiosity that could affect only Chinese people.
我写这本书，是因为当初吸引我父母来到美国的，并非律师职业，而是多元化——而这股力量至今仍蕴藏着纠正方向的可能。对美国抱有希望的根本原因在于，它能够从自身的历史中汲取前进的方向。遍布全国的庞大工业设施，正是美国工程强国力量的有力体现。它拥有丰富的历史遗产，可以以此为基础，开启下一轮变革。
In my professional life, I was puzzled that even financial markets barely reacted to major lockdowns in China. In February, I went on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast, talking with cohosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal, as we all felt a bit bewildered that the market didn’t want to price in a global pandemic. Either these hyperrational people thought that Beijing’s measures were effective enough to stomp out the virus or that it couldn’t really affect the rest of the world. Reality settled in shortly afterward.
美国目前缺乏的是采取行动的紧迫感。建设需要做出艰难的选择。美国人必须相信，即使不赋予律师权力去事无巨细地干预一切，社会也能繁荣发展。美国应该拥抱其变革的渴望。我希望有一天，美国也能宣布自己是一个发展中国家。这将证明美国有能力进行自我改革，摆脱现状的束缚，并最终最大限度地释放人类的潜能。“发展中”是一个值得我们引以为豪的词。
The fierce anger that the Chinese people felt at the cover-up in Wuhan partly transfigured into a sense of pride at the pandemic control efforts conducted by the central government. Chinese saw how Italy, Russia, and the United States mishandled their pandemic response. They gawked at clips of Donald Trump speculating that the virus would disappear on its own or that it could be tackled by injecting disinfectants into people. When Li Wenliang died, foreign commentators bandied about the term “Chernobyl moment” to describe the greatest threat to the Communist Party’s legitimacy in decades. Three months later, Xi declared that China had “turned the tide on the virus.” Subsequently, while the miseries of Covid deepened in other countries, People’s Daily declared that pandemic controls were a demonstration of the superiority of China’s socialist political system.
致谢
China’s pandemic control measures were not unique. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan also imposed lockdowns, practiced centralized quarantines, forced international travelers into quarantine hotels, and demanded everyone display health tracking apps. But China enforced these controls more diligently, on far more people, because it is an engineering state.
Gavekal Dragonomics 是思考中国问题的最佳场所。2016 年的一天，我在纽约与 Arthur Kroeber 共进午餐，当时我并未想到，他委派我研究中国科技发展的任务，竟会让我踏上一段穿梭于香港、北京和上海的奇妙旅程。Arthur 不仅对中国问题，而且对所有事情都见解独到、判断力敏锐。Andrew Batson 教会了我如何成为一名分析师，也提升了我的写作水平。Louis Gave 以乐观积极的态度管理着公司，并招募了一批求知欲极强的同事。Simon Cartledge，公司的老朋友，让香港这座城市更具学术氛围。我很荣幸曾与他们共事。
Only a country ruled by engineers could be so single-minded about pursuing a number. Since the early days of the pandemic, Chinese officials became obsessed with two numbers: new infections and the reproductive rate of the virus. The engineering state did everything it could to stomp them down. It led, ultimately, to the pursuit of zero-Covid (formally known as dynamic zero clearing in Chinese). Just as with the one-child policy, the target could not be clearer: The number was in the name. And just as with the one-child policy, zero-Covid was suffused with military language: China was fighting a people’s war against the virus, and cities like Wuhan and Shanghai were battlegrounds that had to be won.
耶鲁大学法学院的蔡保罗中国研究中心是撰写中国相关书籍的最佳场所。保罗·格维尔茨教授是我所能想象到的最鼓舞人心的导师。我无比感激保罗为我安排了这样一个地方，让我能够远离北京和华盛顿特区的种种纷扰，以恰到好处的距离来思考中国问题。蔡保罗中国研究中心汇聚了众多才华横溢、学识渊博的学者。同事们。我很幸运能够接触到麦克米伦中心（该中心慷慨地授予我讲师称号）、杰克逊学院以及耶鲁大学更广泛的学者群体，其中包括 Arne Westad、Jing Tsu、Dan Mattingly、Paul Kennedy、Zach Liscow、David Schleicher 等。
No policy was too senseless to pursue after Xi Jinping staked the prestige of the Communist Party on control of the virus. “Prevention and control work cannot be relaxed,” Xi repeatedly instructed local officials. The costs of zero-Covid seemed worth it for a while. Only later did the increasingly severe movement controls and state disregard for any medical condition except Covid turn the strategy into a farce. Officials brought a literal-mindedness to enforcing zero-Covid that created situations best described as whimsical. The coastal city of Xiamen swabbed the mouths of fresh-caught fish to test for Covid. A panda research base in Chengdu tested every animal in its facility. Medical workers chased down Tibetan and Mongolian herdsmen—who probably saw nothing but yaks for days on grassland steppes—to swab their mouths.
每当我听到有人对北京的下一步行动妄下断言时，我都会感到一阵刺痛。我们其他人都心知肚明。我们曾是分析师、记者、企业高管和外交官，我们都清楚，对于领导层的想法，我们谁也只能了解一些零碎的信息。我非常感谢在北京、上海、香港、旧金山、纽约和华盛顿特区与我共进咖啡、午餐或小酌的众多朋友，我们一起进行了这种谦逊的交流：将碎片拼凑起来。
Throughout the three years of the pandemic, China developed a weightier state apparatus, one better able to impress itself upon its subjects using digital surveillance. Enforcement of the one-child policy was an intensely physical act, in which health workers got up close and personal with vulnerable women. To achieve zero-Covid, the state once more mobilized millions of people: a mostly male workforce that donned white protective gear to become dabai, or the public enforcers of pandemic control, and a mostly female workforce that worked as contact tracers to investigate people’s travel histories between and within cities.
在我还没真正构思好这本书的写作方向之前，托比·蒙迪就对它充满信心。从提案到出版，托比是我遇到过的最体贴、最有经验的经纪人，他在整个过程中都给予了我极大的帮助。我非常感激托比把我介绍给了诺顿出版社的编辑卡罗琳·亚当斯，她才华横溢、耐心十足、热情洋溢，令我叹服。感谢帕特·维兰德、丽贝卡·霍米斯基、凯尔·拉德勒以及诺顿出版社的全体团队成员，与他们合作简直是一种享受。出版社的莉亚·保罗斯让更多人注意到这本书。企鹅出版社的卡西亚娜·伊奥尼塔给予了我坚定不移的支持，而菲奥娜·利维则帮助这本书走向了全球读者。
Digital technologies gave the engineering state a tool it did not have when enforcing the one-child policy. Implementing zero-Covid was a technologically intensive affair that used mobile networks to track people’s movements, sometimes aided by facial recognition technologies and other forms of digital surveillance enabled by the mobile devices that nearly everyone carried.
如果没有雨果·林格伦的支持和陪伴，这本书就不会是现在的样子。他提升了我的创作抱负，也让我的故事更加生动。雨果经常给予我写作上的信心，这让我受益匪浅。感谢尤里·布拉姆，是他把我介绍给了托比（他称之为“所有经纪人中最棒的”）和雨果（“世界上最优秀的编辑”）。尤里说得没错。如果我的灵感枯竭，尼克·巴格利总能用他的热情激励我。自从我听了尼克在埃兹拉·克莱因秀上的节目后，律师圈就一直支持着我。 我们经常在安娜堡一起吃午饭。我推荐他即将出版的新书，也推荐他担任婚礼司仪的服务。
Sometimes, China’s digital platforms introduced helpful interfaces, for example, when mapping services made it easier for people to find fever clinics nearby. Sometimes, they were enlisted to control the movements of people. To access the showers at Shanghai University, students had to display a code on their phones, which was green for five and a half hours every two days. A sociology student marveled at her experience to a Shanghai newspaper: “It’s such a strange feeling: the idea that all our daily activities—what we eat, or when we can take a shower—are included in the authorities’ plan.” The state attempted to reduce movement throughout society. Since Chinese university campuses were already self-enclosed areas, often far from urban zones—and since college students are meant to spend all their time studying anyway—officials simply decided to lock them in. During lockdowns, students struggled to stay sane in their dorm rooms, which might have four people bunking together.
斯坦福大学胡佛历史实验室的斯蒂芬·科特金（Stephen Kotkin）以及约翰·霍普金斯大学高级国际研究学院的亨利·法雷尔（Henry Farrell）和杰西卡·陈·韦斯（Jessica Chen Weiss）主持的稿件研讨班，使这本书更加完善。《Breakneck》的写作视角可能会让大多数政治学家感到不满，也会让许多历史学家感到恼火。尽管如此，我仍然非常感谢各位学者齐聚一堂，阅读我的稿件并提供反馈：帕洛阿尔托的斯蒂芬·科特金、约瑟夫·托里吉安（Joseph Torigian）、约瑟夫·莱德福德（Joseph Ledford）、格伦·蒂弗特（Glenn Tiffert）、格雷厄姆·韦伯斯特（Graham Webster）、科维尔·梅斯肯斯（Covell Meyskens）、安东尼·格雷戈里（Anthony Gregory）、艾克·弗雷曼（Eyck Freymann）、龚伟拉（Weila Gong）和里亚·罗伊（Ria Roy）；以及华盛顿特区的亨利·法雷尔、杰西卡·陈·韦斯、汤姆·奥利克（Tom Orlik）、托德·塔克（Todd Tucker）、詹姆斯·帕尔默（James Palmer）、杰里米·华莱士（Jeremy Wallace）、尤金·魏（Eugene Wei）和史蒂文·特莱斯（Steven Teles）。亨利·法雷尔和尤金·魏就像知识界的泰迪熊，每次见到他们都让我忍不住想把他们抱在怀里好好亲亲。
Factory workers were sometimes enclosed within a “bubble.” That was Beijing’s invention for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in which foreign athletes were physically separated from the rest of the population. Companies attempted to create bubbles by enticing workers never to leave the factory—sleeping by the assembly lines—for perhaps quadruple their usual pay. Volkswagen and Foxconn, for example, adopted these bubbles to keep the assembly lines for their cars and iPhones flowing. The problem was that even the most persevering workers grew tired of living at the assembly line after a few weeks. And as often as not, the virus would still penetrate the bubble, infecting everyone.
在我开始写作之前，许多人都给予了我对这本书项目的鼓励，其中最重要的是泰勒·考恩（Tyler Cowen）。自从大学时代起，我就一直感激泰勒对我的作品感兴趣。我们曾在达理、台北、弗吉尼亚等地继续交流，我希望未来还能在更多的地方继续交流。伊娃·窦（Eva Dou）、诺亚·史密斯（Noah Smith）、本·汤普森（Ben Thompson）、特蕾西·阿洛威（Tracy Alloway）、布拉德·德隆（Brad DeLong）、帕特里克·科利森（Patrick Collison）、埃兹拉·克莱因（Ezra Klein）、克里斯·施罗德（Chris Schroeder）、西蒙·卡特利奇（Simon Cartledge）、卢一仁（Yiren Lu）、斯蒂芬·格林（Stephen Green）、谢艳梅（Yanmei Xie）、凯文·凯利（Kevin Kelly）、阿琼·纳拉扬（Arjun Narayan）、郭凯文（Kevin Kwok）以及其他许多人都曾给予我早期的鼓励。我非常感谢克里斯·米勒（Chris Miller）、埃文·奥斯诺斯（Evan Osnos）、詹姆斯·克拉布特里（James Crabtree）、蒂姆·黄（Tim Hwang）和亨利·法雷尔（Henry Farrell）与我分享了他们的提案草稿。
Public spaces sometimes suffered a surprise lockdown. On more than one occasion, visitors to Shanghai Disneyland were told that they could no longer depart from the happiest place on earth because a close contact of a confirmed case had passed through it. Thirty thousand visitors were trapped inside the park for much of a day in 2022, departing only after they all tested negative for the virus. There didn’t seem to be too much grumbling since Disneyland continued to operate its rides. Better there than at Shanghai’s Jiuting Bridge Wholesale Market or the Songjiang Building Supplies Market, both of which kept more than a thousand people locked up for days without providing water or food. Throughout the latter phases of zero-Covid, panicked white-collar workers streamed out of office buildings in Shanghai or Shenzhen when there was a rumor that a building might be placed under lockdown. It’s not clear what was more frightening: being trapped with coworkers or not being able to shower.
我衷心感谢 Arthur Kroeber、Greg Ip、Nick Bagley、Christian Pfrang 和 Ola Rye Malm 通读了整部手稿。同时，我也要感谢那些阅读过部分章节的朋友们，特别是我的上海朋友们，他们分享了各自对封城的看法：Ken Jarrett、Ian Driscoll、Gavin Cross、Mattie Bekink、Victor Bekink、Eric Goldwyn、Christian Shepherd、Teng Bao、Jeff Lonsdale、Chris Delong、Hollis Robbins 和 Kristina。Daugirdas、David Schleicher、John Ryan、Patrick Steigler、Gabriel Crossley、Chris Zheng 等人。
Big cities attempted to enforce lockdowns on targeted spaces, like a particular apartment or office building. Covid lockdowns were far more indiscriminate elsewhere, for an entire city might be locked down over the discovery of a handful of cases. Smaller cities had little confidence that the medical infrastructure could handle a surge of infections, so local officials were quicker to order disruptive lockdowns. The people who lived in China’s border cities (next to Myanmar and Laos in the south, or Russia and North Korea in the north) were subject to the most frequent lockdowns of all, since people traveled through sometimes porous national borders.
我在纽黑文的生活很简单：从图书馆到壁球场，再回到图书馆。在球场上，我很庆幸能和尼克·弗里施、约翰·瑞安和尼古拉斯·贝克林这三位固定搭档一起打球，我们虽然技术平平，但热情十足。达里乌斯·隆加里诺、卡曼·卢塞罗、魏昌浩和杰里米·道姆偶尔组织桌游之夜，让办公室充满乐趣。保罗·格维尔茨带我去芭蕾舞剧院的绝佳位置欣赏演出。翱翔之鹰俱乐部也让我的生活充满新鲜感。当我想念纽约的刺激时，戴夫·彼得森和尤金·魏会为我留出一张空床。感谢所有让我的生活充满乐趣的人。
Many people made their peace with these practices because they listened to health authorities who said that it was better than infections and deaths; because the state piled the regulations on gradually, improvising as it went along; or because they had no other choice. By the time that Xi’an and Shanghai’s lockdowns came into view, however, more people questioned whether food insecurity and indefinite confinement made the pursuit of zero-Covid still worthwhile.
如果没有西尔维娅·林特纳的陪伴，我的写作之路将会多么孤独。她不仅因为自己也写过书而显得敏感，更因为我认识的人中最睿智、最体贴的西尔维娅。我们一起经历过冒险，一起面对过悲伤，一起辩论过，也一起体验过无数的快乐。我永远都不希望我们的谈话结束。
The first act of zero-Covid was characterized by fury, the second act by pride mixed in with some degree of exhaustion. The third act, which began after Shanghai’s lockdown, led to desperation and, later, broad protests.
这本书献给我的父母，弗兰克和瑞秋。我敬佩我的父母，他们在“跑步”这个词还没流行起来的时候就敢于冒险，更何况当时他们还带着年幼的孩子。我的童年无可替代。作为一名加拿大皇家陆军学员，我学到的最宝贵的一课就是把最难的事情当作最简单的事情来对待。我希望你们拥有最好的未来，所以我希望你们能认真考虑那些看似困难的事情：多出去锻炼，再养一只狗，积极参与社区活动，或许有一天，还能搬到日落公园去住。
An hour after Shanghai’s surprise lockdown announcement, Silvia and I purchased airline tickets to Yunnan, the mountainous province in China’s southwest where my family is from.
笔记
Neither of us trusted that the Shanghai lockdown would last only eight days. More important, both of us were able to work remotely. We had been discussing whether to depart from Shanghai since the eerie day we saw the dabai besiege the Embankment Building. The lockdown announcement was a good prompt for organizing our departure. When Silvia and I left, our flight was one of a dozen that hadn’t been canceled that day. We were lucky. Cities across China had already refused to allow flights from Shanghai because it was the center of the omicron outbreak.
第一章：工程师与律师
A trip we thought would take two weeks turned into something that lasted nearly half a year. Yunnan is a good place for reflection because it is plausibly China’s freest province. In the mountains of Yunnan, I glimpsed the idea of not only the engineering state but also the lawyerly society. Several questions ran through my mind while I was unable to return to Shanghai: How was China able to enforce lockdowns of this scale? Why have people been able to accept it? And when will Xi finally give up these controls?
- 10耗资 360 亿美元： Rose Yu，“中国最繁忙的高铁线路快速盈利”，《华尔街日报》中国实时博客，2016 年 7 月 20 日更新。
- 1013.5亿人次： 《京沪高铁累计旅客发送量约13.5亿人次》 [京沪高铁已运送旅客约13.5亿人次]，人民日报，2021年6月24日。
- 10耗资 1280 亿美元：拉尔夫·瓦塔贝迪安，《加州高速铁路项目的新成本估算使其亏损更严重》，《洛杉矶时报》 ，2023 年 3 月 11 日。
- 11额外的山脉：拉尔夫·瓦塔贝迪安，《加州子弹头列车是如何脱轨的》，《纽约时报》 ，2022 年 10 月 9 日。
- 11大肆宣传高薪工作岗位的数量： “新闻稿：就业优先：加州高速铁路建设工作岗位突破 13,000 个里程碑”，加州高速铁路管理局，2024 年 3 月 19 日。
- 11总体上未能实现建设： Austan Goolsbee 和 Chad Syverson，“美国建筑业生产力的奇怪而糟糕的道路”，工作论文第 30845 号，国家经济研究局，2023 年 1 月，2023 年 2 月修订。
- 12“起诉这些混蛋！”：保罗·萨宾，《公共公民：对大政府的攻击和美国自由主义的重塑》（WW Norton，2021 年），第 101 页。
- 13“美国贵族”：亚历克西·德·托克维尔， 《论美国的民主》（美国图书馆，2004 年），第 309 页。
- 14在一篇题为“ Nicholas Bagley，《程序迷恋》，密歇根法律评论118，第 3 期（2019 年）：345-401”的开创性论文中。
- 15“如今华尔街律师的收入比银行家还高”：卡拉·隆巴多，“如今华尔街律师的收入比银行家还高”，《华尔街日报》，2023 年 6 月 22 日。
- 15“律师的报酬如此之高，以至于人们将其与 NBA 相提并论”：莫琳·法雷尔和阿努普雷塔·达斯，“律师的报酬如此之高，以至于人们将其与 NBA 相提并论”，《纽约时报》，2024 年 7 月 1 日，2024 年 7 月 2 日更新。
- 16用 1991 年的一篇论文中的话说： Kevin M. Murphy、Andrei Shleifer 和 Robert W. Vishny，“人才配置：对增长的影响”，《经济学季刊》 106，第 2 期（1991 年）：503-530。
Yunnan is even more mountainous than neighboring Guizhou, and still less touched by the industrial transformation of China’s prosperous coastal zones. It remains one of China’s poorer regions, its economy sustained by tourism and resource extraction, particularly minerals and tobacco. The northernmost part of Yunnan is historic Tibet, home to a chunk of the Himalayas—including Kawa Karpo, one of the most sacred mountains in Tibetan Buddhism. Shangri-La is the largest city in the region. The small roads around Tibetan monasteries are strewn with prayer flags and studded with impassive yaks. In Yunnan’s south, where I flew from Shanghai, the mountains are greener and gentler. Tea hills and rubber plantations rise above the Mekong River, carrying snowmelt from Tibetan highlands that eventually drains beyond southern Vietnam. Xishuangbanna is one of China’s most biodiverse regions, home to many trees and plants, wild elephants, peafowl, bears, and birds galore.
Around half of China’s officially recognized minority groups have their homes in Yunnan. They live between its snowy mountains, rainforests, rice terraces, and fast-moving rivers. Many of them have historically resisted rule by the dominant Han. It is part of a vast zone of highland Southeast Asia that various scholars have labeled Zomia, which holds innumerable hill peoples who have developed state-repellent practices. James C. Scott has written most elegantly about how people in Zomia have become “barbarians by design,” who cultivate shifting root crops (which are less assessable by tax collectors) and maintain an oral culture (which makes their histories and ethnic identities more malleable). It is not surprising that people in these hills claim various liberties, like foraging wild mushrooms, hunting game, or trafficking harder drugs. Not even the Han-Chinese state has been able to assert jurisdiction over the dense jungles and rugged mountains of the region.
Silvia and I spent several months in the city of Dali, which has a lake on one side and a mountain range on the other. The local Bai people built lovely lakeside houses, made of white walls ornamented with wooden carvings and blue ink paintings. The Bai are mountain farmers who have a long culture of craftmaking, producing marbleware or indigo linens for trade with the Han. Up until the 2000s, a different Bai product attracted foreign travelers: cannabis, which grew freely in the region. Foreigners in Beijing or Shanghai may still reminisce about the good old days in Dali, where one could be beckoned by a smiling older lady into an alley to purchase a baggie.
With its lake, nature, and sunny weather, the city has gained the nickname of Dalifornia. While I continued my work remotely, Silvia was doing ethnographic fieldwork. She introduced me to some of the young people there, who were exploring their interests in agriculture or virtual technologies. The city has attracted an odd mix of people: China’s burgeoning organic movement, which is mostly made up of younger people who want to take advantage of Dali’s fertile soils; moms who bring their kids to experience nature-focused educational programs as a break from the hypercompetitive schools in Shanghai and Shenzhen; and foreigners who came for the cannabis and stayed for the slower pace of life, opening sourdough bakeries, cafés, and techno clubs. Nowadays young Chinese and foreigners go to Dali not for cannabis but for more thrilling drugs: cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other Web3 paraphernalia.
A great deal of China’s crypto community has relocated to Dalifornia, drawn as much by the beautiful natural setting as the permissive environment. Mountains have beckoned, as Scott has written, to dissenters, rebels, and subversive types. It is not only the air that thins out at higher altitudes: The tendrils of the state do too. Small bands of people tired of tax administration or the other ills of governed life have climbed upward. As a consequence, mountain dwellers tend to be seen as unruly folks, be they Appalachian Americans, Highland Scots, or various ethnic groups in Yunnan and other parts of Zomia. What is a difficulty for government administration and industrial growth is often a positive for personal liberties. The mountains of Yunnan protected local peoples from the state-produced famines in the Great Leap Forward and the harangues of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
That’s why Yunnan might be China’s freest region. It is farther from the country’s core, and unlike in Xinjiang or Tibet, the state hasn’t treated its ethnic populations to its most stringent controls. Yunnan can be a hub for drug trafficking, cryptocurrency gatherings, or the most radical activity in recent years: lax Covid enforcement. Local governments closed a market here or there throughout the years of zero-Covid but didn’t bother to enforce the serious lockdowns that affected Wuhan, Xi’an, and Shanghai. Too few people lived in enclosed apartment compounds for that to work. If authorities squeezed too tightly, people in Bai villages might have simply walked from their backyards into the mountains.
I picked up the idea of the engineering state in Yunnan’s mountains. The government was able to treat people as chess pieces to move around (or hold still) in Shanghai, while failing to do so in more remote areas. A glimmer of the lawyerly society came into view as well. One of the most-shared essays during the lockdown was a commentary by Tong Zhiwei, a constitutional law professor in Shanghai, who pointed out that the city’s lockdowns had no legal basis. The government’s response to Tong’s legal arguments was to censor his essay and erase his social media profile. What did it matter that keeping twenty-five million people indoors over an undefined period lacked legal authority? Good luck to anyone attempting to go to a courthouse to file a suit.
It is a little bit difficult to praise the US response to Covid. In retrospect, the whole thing looks shambolic, with different states having different policies, mostly made worse under Donald Trump’s chaotic management. Americans stumbled into learning to live with the virus in large part because of the ineffectualness of the government. But the United States (under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed) produced mRNA vaccines that China could not. And in retrospect, China’s response to Covid looks shambolic as well. The engineering state tried as hard as it could to hold on to earlier triumphs, until it was forced to let everything go.
After the Shanghai lockdown, it grew increasingly apparent that there was no industry that Xi would hesitate to crush and no personal misery worth noticing by the state if it could halt the spread of omicron. It didn’t matter that companies were feeling deeply uncertain about future investments, that local governments were running out of funds as they spent everything on testing, and that people were deeply exhausted. When the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben wrote in 2020 that his country’s pandemic control measures resembled a “sanitation terror” and a “juridical-religious obligation that must be fulfilled at any cost,” he was criticized. His remark, in my view, applies in far stronger force to the engineering state’s commitment to zero-Covid. Chinese people grew livid that the medical system was prepared to ignore any number of deaths from diabetes, cancer, and other life-threatening conditions and that their entire lives had to be subordinated to the targeting of this number.
Hill peoples in Yunnan and other parts of Zomia have mounted occasional insurrections against various state controls. So I found myself wondering why more people did not attempt to protest Shanghai’s lockdown. The United States’ patchy lockdowns, mild even by the standards of European countries, produced mass unrest in the summer of 2020. Occasional scuffles had broken out between angry Shanghainese and police, but there was no broad rebellion. Though China’s domestic security budget is larger than the budget for its military, the state never even had to uncoil its more fearsome elements like the People’s Armed Police to enforce lockdowns. Regular police were all it needed.
A Shanghainese friend helped me appreciate the subtlety of police tactics. He lived in a compound in the French Concession with a lot of foreign residents, becoming, like Owen, one of the unofficial representatives of his building. One day during the lockdown, several of his neighbors acted out their frustrations by toppling a barricade. Afterward, police went through their surveillance videos, identified every perpetrator, and brought them into the station for interrogations that lasted hours. My friend told me that the police rarely asked open-ended questions, saying rather, “Confirm that you kicked the barricade so-and-so many times,” and then writing up their statements and demanding their signature. They didn’t impose any punishments. But these statements hung over the residents. A freaked-out French couple who signed statements subsequently departed the country for good.
I’ve asked several friends why they thought Shanghainese did not protest. They wondered that too. The main reason they proposed was that most Chinese were genuinely fearful of catching the virus. They had listened to too many government reports of how virulent it was and few reports from Western commentators that downplayed its seriousness. China’s health authorities had adopted a gradualist approach to layering on its measures, such that the zero-Covid strategy did not feel so strange until later. And no one imagined that the lockdown would last as long as it did. People might have protested earlier if they knew that the lockdown would last eight weeks, but the city’s initial announcement of an eight-day “pause” forestalled dramatic action.
第二章：建造宏伟建筑
But Shanghai was tense after the vividness of an eight-week lockdown. Nobody knew how Xi planned to exit from zero-Covid: Wasn’t everyone going to catch the virus anyway, potentially meeting it with a domestic vaccine that was less efficacious than what the American government was giving out? Shanghai tightened control over movement restrictions after it reopened in June, announcing that such measures were necessary to prevent another lockdown. For a while, people continued to accept them.
- 22猴子骗子：马克·埃尔文，《大象的撤退：中国环境史》（耶鲁大学出版社，2006 年），第 265 页。
- 24每七把吉他中就有一把是中国制造的： “经济观察：中国吉他制造业搭上‘一带一路’倡议的顺风车”，新华社，2023年9月21日。
- 26将防空洞改造成艺术展览馆：《重庆防空洞变身商业场所》，新华社，2024年1月5日。
- 27全国省份里程排名第四：《2022年中国高速公路里程同比增加0.29万公里其中广东省高速公路里程累计于重点》【2022年我国高速公路里程较上年增加2900公里，广东省高速公路总里程排名第一】，洞察资讯，2023年11月22日。
- 28贵州一半的儿童上高中：《2013年中国国家人类发展报告：可持续和宜居城市：迈向生态文明》（联合国开发计划署，2013年），第108页。
- 28徒步穿越险峻的山路： “中国西南山区长途跋涉上学”，《中国日报》，2013 年 3 月 29 日。
- 29中国修建了第二批高速公路： Jean-Paul Rodrigue，“1959-2021 年美国州际公路系统和中国高速公路系统的长度”，《交通系统地理》，2025 年 1 月 29 日访问。
- 291990 年，北京有 50 万辆汽车。 《中国日报》 2003 年 9 月 5 日报道“北京轻松出行路线图”
- 29到 2024 年，中国将有 4.35 亿名驾驶员： “中国报告称，过去二十年平均每年新增驾驶员 2100 万”，新华社，2024 年 5 月 2 日。
- 29仅上海一地就处理了更多集装箱： Ria Dutta 和 Surupasree Sarmmah，“了解美国十大最繁忙港口”，Container X-Change，2023 年 9 月 13 日，2024 年 7 月 12 日更新。
- 30批准建造 11 座新反应堆： “中国批准建造创纪录的 11 座新核电反应堆”，彭博社，2024 年 8 月 20 日。
- 30国家建造了一座新城市： Arthur Kroeber，《中国经济：每个人都需要知道的事》（牛津大学出版社，2016 年），第 67 页。
- 30城市公寓的平均价格下降了：克罗伯，《中国经济》，第108页。
- 3044亿吨水泥：瓦茨拉夫·斯米尔，《瓦茨拉夫·斯米尔的世界如何运作——是什么驱动着我们的经济》，《金融时报》 ，2022年1月25日。
- 31每年新增 120 个公园：胡敏，“上海力争在 2025 年成为‘公园之城’”，《闪耀》，2022 年 9 月 28 日。
- 33“基础设施投资可能过犹不及”：迈克尔·佩蒂斯，《大陆过度投资的代价》，卡内基国际和平基金会，2009 年 10 月 26 日。
- 33中国的高速铁路系统在经济上是可行的： Martha Lawrence、Richard Bullock 和 Ziming Liu，“中国的高速铁路发展”，《国际发展聚焦》（世界银行集团，2019 年 6 月 6 日），第 68 页。
- 34成本飙升： “2023 年项目更新报告”，加州高速铁路管理局，2023 年 3 月 1 日，第 61 页。
- 34加强知识和商业交流：吴晓康和杨继军，“中国高速铁路与专利贸易”，经济模型123（2023 年 3 月）。
- 34减少道路交通事故：岳璐等，“高速铁路对城市创新的影响及其潜在机制”， PLoS One 17，第 3 期（2022 年 3 月 4 日）：e0264779。
- 34降低碳排放： Lawrence、Bullock 和 Liu，“中国高速铁路发展”，4。
- 34免缴所得税：国际货币基金组织亚太部，《中国的收入动员战略》，IMF 工作人员国家报告 2024，050 (2024)，A002，2025 年 1 月 29 日访问。
- 35约占其国内生产总值的 10%： “社会概览：亚太地区”（经合组织，2019 年 3 月 19 日），第 25 页。
- 35吝啬于失业保险： Nicholas R. Lardy 和 Tianlei Huang，“中国薄弱的社会保障网将抑制其经济复苏”，彼得森国际经济研究所，2020 年 5 月 4 日。
- 35被拘留的学生试图组织马克思主义阅读活动：罗布·施密茨，“在中国，共产党最新的、意想不到的目标：年轻的马克思主义者”，美国国家公共电台，2018 年 11 月 21 日。
- 35“即使我们达到了”：习近平，“推进共同繁荣”，求是，2021年10月15日。
- 39五家航空公司的航班数量不足十二家：詹姆斯·梅杰，《下一个中国：通往无路之路》，彭博新闻，2023 年 7 月 13 日。
- 39政府删除了自己承认的内容： Rebecca Feng 和 Cao Li，“中国一个贫困省份挥霍无度修建桥梁和道路：现在面临债务清算”，《华尔街日报》，2023 年 5 月 21 日更新。
- 40黄金档纪录片《反腐专题片揭李再勇‘政绩增量’：三年新增债务1500亿元》，中央电视台，2024年1月8日。
- 41判处李某死刑： “贵州省前高级政委被判处死刑，但暂缓执行”，新华社，2024年8月13日。
- 43接近意大利的水平： Amanda Lee，“中国债务：这三个地区拥有最令人畏惧的债务堆积——那么我们能做些什么？”《南华早报》，2023 年 8 月 12 日。
- 43迫使其下调 GDP：露西·霍恩比，“中国一线城市 2017 年 GDP 可能下调近 20%”，《金融时报》，2018 年 1 月 11 日。
- 44前所未有的生产力水平： “中国正努力将自己变成一个由 19 个超级区域组成的国家”，《经济学人》，2018 年 6 月 23 日。
- 44预计中国将生产约 6000 万辆汽车：布拉德·塞特瑟，《中国会接管全球汽车行业吗？》，《追踪资金流向》，外交关系委员会，2024 年 12 月 8 日。
- 44重启生产线： Yoko Kubota 和 Clarence Leong，“为什么中国不断生产超出自身需求的汽车”，《华尔街日报》，2024 年 4 月 28 日更新。
- 45失业保险金增长微乎其微： Andrew Batson，“中国要付出多大的代价才能支持家庭收入？” Tangled Woof（博客），2020 年 8 月 9 日。
- 452022 年贸易额创历史新高：埃里克·马丁和安娜·蒙泰罗，“尽管政治分歧扩大，但美中商品贸易仍创历史新高”，彭博新闻，2023 年 2 月 7 日，2023 年 2 月 8 日更新。
- 46我们在他的办公室里一边喝茶一边聊天：作者采访，2021 年 10 月 18 日。
- 47在岸股票有其自身的节奏： Franklin Allen 等人，“剖析中国股市的长期表现”（2023 年 12 月 28 日），《金融杂志》，即将出版；可在 SSRN 获取。
- 47比世界其他地区加起来还多的煤炭： Javier Blas，“由于中国，我们燃烧的煤炭比以往任何时候都多”，彭博社，2024 年 12 月 18 日。
- 49“自愿”安置率： Yonten Nyima 和 Emily T. Yeh，“西藏高海拔地区安置同意的构建”，《中国季刊》 254（2023 年 3 月）：1-19。
- 49重症监护病床减少六倍：陈晨，“释放 Omicron”，Think Global Health，2022 年 12 月 16 日。
- 51高达一万亿元人民币： “官方称，发行1万亿元政府债券，防洪救灾是首要任务”，新华社，2023年10月25日。
- 51每单位新增投资带来的增长正在减少： “这意味着随着时间的推移，投资促进增长的效率正在降低。资本边际产出（MPK），即每增加一元人民币资本存量所产生的GDP增量，已从约0.4的峰值下降到最近的0.2左右。” Gavekal，“供给侧结构性问题”，https://research.gavekal.com/article/the-supply-side-structural-problem/。
- 52中国支出占其GDP的13.5%： “中国按经济部门划分的资本形成和资本存量估计”，世界银行数据目录，2021年10月21日。
- 53《丰盛》：埃兹拉·克莱因和德里克·汤普森，《丰盛》（Avid Reader，2025）。
- 53等待环境分析： “海上风电市场报告：2023 年版”，美国能源部风能技术办公室，2023 年 8 月 24 日。
- 53新增 6 吉瓦： “美国风能监测：2023 年回顾”，伍德麦肯兹和美国清洁能源公司，2024 年 3 月 28 日。
- 53中国新增 76： Kostantsa Rangelova，“2023 年创纪录的太阳能激增用六张图表解释”，Ember，2024 年 5 月 30 日。
- 53比其他七国集团成员国高出四倍： Rangelova，“2023 年创纪录的太阳能激增现象解释”。
- 53《纽约时报》的埃兹拉·克莱因： “埃兹拉·克莱因采访亚当·图兹”，《纽约时报》，2021 年 9 月 17 日。
I was just impatient. There would be protests throughout the country in the fall of 2022. In Shanghai, they turned intensely political. I’ll never forget that I witnessed open antigovernment demonstrations in China’s richest and most populous city.
Silvia and I departed from Yunnan at the end of the summer. We returned to a Shanghai tense from the fresh trauma of lockdown.
The city’s restrictions were more consistently enforced than before. I couldn’t enter a public space—the subway, a restaurant, a convenience store—without displaying my health code showing a negative PCR test taken in the past seventy-two hours. The city put up kiosks on many street corners, but it was easy to forget to take a Covid test in time, making it no longer possible to meet one’s friend at a restaurant or café. One day, I had a lapse. When I stood on a sidewalk trying to order a coffee from a window counter, I faced the absurdity of being refused. The barista shrugged and turned away when I showed my anger.
In part due to tougher measures, Shanghai did not see rising caseloads through the fall. Omicron, however, was spreading through other cities across the country.
An earthquake struck Sichuan in September 2022. When panicked residents in the city of Chengdu hastened to exit their homes, pandemic control officers barred some people from leaving, locking them inside trembling buildings. A bus carrying people to quarantine facilities overturned on hilly terrain in Guizhou, killing twenty-seven people. A fire broke out in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, where ten people died after fire trucks were obstructed by pandemic-control barricades such that they couldn’t direct water on the blaze. All these were extensively reported in Chinese media. So was the 2022 FIFA World Cup, where millions of soccer-loving Chinese watched crowds of people cheer inside Doha’s stadiums. Two years ago, they’d scorned how the rest of the world handled the virus. Now Chinese watched with envy and wondered, was Covid really more dangerous than fires and earthquakes?
Xi Jinping wanted nothing to go wrong in 2022. At the party congress that October, he was about to appoint himself to a third term. It would have disrupted his political plans to let Covid break loose in China, triggering the sort of unrest that frightened the leadership at any time, but especially before the party congress that takes place once every five years. Xi grew obsessed with creating a stable political environment.
In May 2022, still in the middle of Shanghai’s lockdown, the Politburo announced that China’s zero-Covid policy “can stand the test of history. . . . Just as we have won the great battle for the defense of Wuhan, so too can we triumph in Shanghai.” The statement carried a sting for any doubters, promising to “fight against any speech that distorts, questions, or rejects our Covid-control policy.” In September, the Internet Monitoring Bureau of the Public Security Ministry issued a directive for propaganda authorities to broadcast only approved messages and to “stop spreading negative energy!”
By the end of October, as China’s largest cities escalated their pandemic controls, Xi secured his third term. But after more than two years of tightening controls and of tragedy, people were enraged.
Protests broke out and turned violent at Foxconn factories in Henan. Electronics assembly is exhausting and repetitive at the best of times; for thousands of assembly-line workers making iPhones, the stress became too much. It’s not clear what exactly prompted the unrest—missed payments, factory bubbles, or the spread of the virus—but it brought young men onto the streets. Videos showed workers facing off against massed riot police, some of them in their dabai suits, throwing bricks, fence segments, and stones into the masses of white uniforms. And the police were retreating.
Protests turned political elsewhere. One man in Chongqing went viral for shouting the American Revolutionary slogan “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Onlookers initially protected him from the police, but authorities eventually managed to shove him in a car. In the bar district of the French Concession, people chanted something far more threatening to the regime. One day in November, people held a vigil on Urumqi Road, the center of Shanghai’s bar district where many foreigners live. The road just happened to be named for the city where ten people died in a blaze. It wasn’t meant to be a big event. But it gained energy when tipsy young people staggered out of their cocktail bars and joined the commemorations.
At some point after midnight, the initially subdued vigil turned into a protest. Young people began yelling out their frustrations, surrounded by police, though they did nothing to stop their chants: “Down with the Communist Party! Xi Jinping step down!”
It was an impromptu protest, taking place precisely because it was never organized. I had already gone to sleep that night. The next day, I walked twenty minutes west of my home to Urumqi Road. There I found a substantial police presence with a lot of people milling around. I ran, coincidentally, into my friend Owen. The air thrummed with nervousness and excitement. When a car passed by, blasting the Chinese national anthem at high volume, we all perked up to see if the police would do something. We saw one police officer drag away a reporter from the BBC. In the evening, police moved decisively to clear people away from Urumqi Road. We saw them slowly disperse people from the zone, until they put up high barricades throughout the whole street, blocking most sidewalks.
Then there was a more individual protest. One morning, a man disguised as a construction worker draped two banners on a busy highway bridge in Beijing. He then burned a tire to create smoke and draw attention to his words. The first banner, loosely translated, read:
End the tests, we have to eat;
Stop with curfew, we want to be free;
Enough with lies, we demand dignity;
Reject the Cultural Revolution,
Reform and Opening is the solution;
We don’t need a great leader, but a free election;
We are citizens, not slaves.
The second banner read, “Remove the national traitor Xi Jinping.”
Police arrived to arrest him and take down the banners but not before these slogans started spreading on social media. The protester’s identity remains unconfirmed. What’s certain is that he’s paying a grievous price for hanging the banners. Censors have struck the highway bridge from China’s mapping services. If you put in “Sitong Bridge,” the service says that there is no result.
Some of the youth protesters suffered too. Young people gathered in Shanghai, Beijing, and a few other cities at the end of November, sometimes holding up a blank piece of A4-sized printer paper. Carrying blank pieces of paper became a way to symbolize China’s censorship. It was a perfect echo: Whiteness represented the enforcement of pandemic controls, through the protective medical suits of massed groups of dabai (big whites), until young people appropriated it for protest. Later, anti-Covid demonstrations in China were collectively known as “the white paper protests.”
Youth chanting, hanging slogans, holding blank pieces of paper—these would be paltry acts of protest in any democratic country. But it’s hard to overstate how rare it is to see public acts of defiance in China, especially after Xi dedicated immense resources for surveillance and enforcement to smother exactly this sort of demonstration. I certainly would never have expected to hear shouts of “Down with the Communist Party, Xi Jinping step down!” in Shanghai while police haplessly stood by. Even if these are fairly small acts, Beijing’s bridge man and the young people in Shanghai deserve to be remembered for their courage.
The number of protesters was never very large. They were special because they involved upper-class Chinese families: wealthy people who didn’t want to suffer lockdown and well-off youths who attended good schools. The Communist Party had always counted on these people for their support. The denouement of China’s Covid experience features broad exhaustion.
Throughout November 2022, while these protests took place, the virus was spinning out of control. Crucially, it wasn’t under control in Beijing. As the city moved to lock down, it encountered more resistance among residents. Beijing residents are proud of their heritage of challenging power, and many people were nervous about meeting the same fate that Shanghainese suffered in the spring.
The government’s response grew erratic. While top officials in Beijing were insisting that pandemic controls must continue, local cities around the country barely enforced any controls. By the start of December, the state had announced several rounds of “optimization” measures, the last of which abandoned the language of dynamic zero clearing. Nearly three years after it began, zero-Covid was over.
I caught Covid in Shanghai on December 23. It was a mild case, and many other people were less fortunate. The timing was nonsensical: The state had dropped all restrictions during the worst of winter. China hadn’t meaningfully accelerated its vaccinations of the population beforehand; it remains mystifying why they didn’t give people shots in any of the dozens of times it forced people to take PCR tests. Doctors and nurses received no special warning that zero-Covid would end abruptly, leaving them to face a surge of patients.
When I think back to this moment, it’s the lack of fever medications that really sticks with me. For three years, the government made it difficult for people to buy ibuprofen, Advil, and other fever reducers for fear that people might disguise their fevers to avoid detection. During an outbreak, pharmacies limited purchases of fever meds or removed fever meds from their shelves entirely. Therefore, much of the Chinese population met this Covid wave without medication on hand. As best as I can tell, China is the only country that denied its people fever medications during a fever-producing pandemic. It is a perfect encapsulation of the engineering state’s twisted logic.
Propaganda authorities had no special warning, though they shifted seamlessly from declaring that the virus must be stomped out in one week to saying that everyone had to be responsible for their own health the next. It felt like living through the scene in Orwell’s 1984, in which officials switched directions, mid-speech, declaring that Oceania was at war with Eastasia rather than Eurasia.
Why did Xi suddenly abandon zero-Covid? I don’t think that the protests played the biggest role. Far more important was that people throughout the country had grown exhausted by lockdowns, which robbed them of their sanity and livelihoods. Local governments were just as exhausted, with many of them facing financial stress from doing so much testing while forgoing economic activity. (Economists from Nomura estimated that testing cost 1.8 percent of China’s GDP in 2022.) When the virus became entrenched in Beijing, I suspect that the central government took a good, hard look at whether it could enforce a lockdown on the capital, which has always enjoyed the greatest political pampering. Local jurisdictions around the country were already abandoning their own controls. Beijing decided that pandemic controls were no longer tenable. And so the virus came.
Xi Jinping didn’t make many public appearances between December and January. He never stepped out to explain the reversal of a policy he personally and forcefully insisted on, nor did he attempt to offer much comfort to people who faced an illness that his state spent three years terrifying people about. Crematoriums were operating nonstop from the end of December 2022, though the state failed to announce that many people had died from Covid. It was interesting that the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a burst of obituaries in December 2022 for the senior scholars who had just passed away.
In January, the state mouthpiece Xinhua released a commentary attempting to rebut that the move from zero-Covid to total-Covid was haphazardly planned. Rather, the news agency stated that “all decisions were made after scientific analysis and shrewd calculation” and that these were “by no means impulsive decisions.”
The reversal felt too abrupt to be shrewd, but no matter. The twentieth party congress concluded with a full political sweep for Xi. His choice for a new premier (China’s head of government) stung many people: Li Qiang, Shanghai’s party secretary on whose watch the lockdown took place. Through 2024, every governing party in developed democracies lost vote shares, including the Democratic Party in the United States, as voters tossed out the incumbents they blamed for pandemic management. In authoritarian China, the politician who oversaw the largest lockdown was elevated to the second-highest office.
And so the Covid-19 pandemic ended in China as it began, hostage to political events: willfully ignored by Wuhan authorities in the beginning and then by the central government at the end.
After moving from China to the Yale Law School, I gained some new perspectives. It was a good thing that the United States stumbled to “live with the virus.” I found one item particularly quite irksome on my return to America in 2023: a yard sign that begins “In this home we believe science is real.” The Communist Party “followed the science” of zero-Covid to its logical conclusion: barring people from their homes, testing people on a near-daily basis, and doing everything else it could to break the chains of transmission. Four decades ago, it “followed the science” to forcibly prevent many pregnancies in the pursuit of the one-child policy.
We can agree that “science is real.” But we have to keep in mind that there is a political determination involved with how to interpret the science. And that is something the lawyerly society is better at. It has lawyers interested in protecting rights, economists able to think through social science, humanists who consider ethics, and many other voices in the mix, attempting to open policy prescriptions up for debate. China doesn’t have a robust system for political contestation; engineers will simply follow the science until it leads to social immiseration.
Engineering only works if it is using good data. But data probity is another of China’s casualties in the aftermath of Covid. The government has had a wobbly commitment to accurate reporting at the best of times. After the pandemic, the government has more regularly succumbed to the temptation not to share bad news. China announced a total of around 125,000 deaths related to Covid-19, an absurd undercount when scholarly estimates come to nearly 2 million excess deaths. After 2023, China is fudging many other pieces of data, from birth rates to youth unemployment.
Imagine the comedy romp that could be produced about colleagues who used to despise each other learning to come to terms while they were stuck for two weeks, unable to wash, inside their offices. Or the relationship drama between a couple at Disneyland, attempting to resolve their problems as they remained unable to depart from the happiest place on earth. Unfortunately, the state has suppressed any official memory of Shanghai’s lockdown itself. The engineers want people to forget, not to poke fun at this experience.
After zero-Covid, Shanghai is a little bit less like the Paris of the East, a little bit more like another Pyongyang. The city remains amazingly beautiful, with so much art deco, neoclassical, and modernist architecture. Its pleasures continue to deepen, with entrepreneurs competing ferociously to introduce new ways to have fun. But it also has long-term wounds that are not so visible. Owen, who is still in Shanghai, told me that lockdowns no longer come up often in conversation. “But when people get really drunk, it’s still something that people get worked up about.”
My friends felt like they were taken twice to the cleaners: first, when they couldn’t stockpile essential supplies following the surprise lockdown announcement and, later, when they couldn’t stockpile any medicine. What was the point of the April–May lockdown, they ask, when it was all given up just nine months later? Some of the older people said that the lockdown wasn’t the worst thing to happen to them, pointing to the Cultural Revolution. Younger people born after 1990, however, who had known only rising prosperity, had their first real taste of the disaster that could be inflicted by the engineering state.
The Shanghainese elites I knew had a crisis of faith. None of them quite imagined that the spikiest, most coercive instruments of the Chinese state could be pointed directly at them. Nationalist tongues stilled to silence, for a while, after they wagged for two years about how China’s pandemic controls proved its superiority over the West. No wonder business dynamism has fallen in China’s richest and most cosmopolitan city.
The three years of pandemic controls allowed Xi Jinping to indulge in central planning, not only to express certain egalitarian ideals embedded in common prosperity but also to control physical movement of millions. The one-child policy brought the Communist Party to reach deep into women’s bodies; the digital surveillance developed as part of zero-Covid has allowed it to control even a person’s daily access to her shower. There’s now a direct institutional linkage between the two policies. The neighborhood committees that took a starring role in enforcing Covid lockdowns haven’t been disbanded; they are now being used to call up recently married women to ask about their menstrual cycles and whether they wouldn’t like to have a few children. Some are able to bear it. But many young Chinese are tired of being lectured by old men to work hard and have kids while facing a horrid job market.
*Tragically, the only movie that was available to watch then was Christopher Nolan’s baffling Tenet, which might have been better than no movie at all.
Chapter 6 Fortress China
The most remarkable new Chinese slang word that developed during the pandemic was rùn.
It means what it sounds like. Chinese have appropriated this word (meaning “to moisten”) for its English meaning to express their desire to flee. Throughout the unpredictable and protracted lockdowns, rùn evolved to mean leaving big cities, where pandemic controls were tightest. Or it meant emigrating from China altogether. After I departed from China in 2023, I kept meeting Chinese who have, in recent years, decided to emigrate, gambling that their lives would be better abroad.
Young people want to go to Europe, the United States, or an anglophone country, but these governments tend to be miserly with visas to Chinese. Thus, many émigrés go to nearby countries in Asia. Those with ambition and entrepreneurial energy flock to Singapore, where Chinese companies like ByteDance have set up big offices. Those with wealth and means buy themselves a pleasant life in Japan. Everyone else—slackers, free spirits, kids who want to chill—is hanging out in Thailand.
At the end of 2023, I spent a month in Thailand’s Chiang Mai with people who have rùn. I had gotten to know many of them the prior year while I lived in Yunnan. They were young, creative types. These people working in journalism, the arts, or tech went to this mountainous part of southwestern China after they felt stifled by lockdowns and political controls on speech. Yunnan officials tended to be more relaxed, looking the other way while these youths immersed themselves in cryptocurrency projects by day and relaxed at speakeasies at night. These free spirits were interesting to me as a counterpoint to the cultural mainstream. They reject the corporate grind of Beijing and Shenzhen. They want to invent their own lives.
But even Yunnan has grown more restrictive in recent years. Some of these people therefore took a plane to hop over the mountain ranges separating the province from Thailand. Why Thailand? Because it’s easy. Chinese can visit for short stays without a visa; a longer-term residence isn’t difficult to arrange. If they so much as sign up for language classes or Muay Thai boxing lessons, they could qualify for an educational visa. None of them take these educational demands, or life itself, all that seriously. They are in their twenties or early thirties, trying to catch up on three years of lost fun after zero-Covid.
第三章：科技力量
Many of them practiced the intense spirituality possible in Thailand. Chiang Mai is a beautiful holy city studded with golden-roofed temples and monasteries. One can find a meditation retreat in these temples or go to even more secluded retreats in nearby mountains. At these places, one meditates in silence for up to fourteen hours a day, speaking only to the head monk each morning to tell him about the previous day’s breathing exercises and hear the next set of instructions. After twenty straight days of this regimen, one person told me that he found himself slipping in and out of hallucinogenic experiences.
- 57人口猛增：《深圳市第七次全国人口普查公报[1]（第一号） ______全市常住人口情况》，[2020年深圳市第七次全国人口普查公报[1]（第1号）——城市常住人口状况]，深圳市统计局，2021年5月17日。
- 602009 年的一篇中国报道：王晓义，《富士康龙华科技园之旅：走进郭台铭的紫禁城（4）》，网易科技报告，2009 年 9 月 30 日。
- 60一百万名员工：员工，《2020 年企业社会责任报告》，鸿海精密工业股份有限公司，2021 年。
- 60他自己的高尔夫球车：王，“富士康龙华科技园之旅”。
- 60提供 25 个专业：罗伯·施密茨，“富士康最新产品：大学学位”，市场，2019 年 4 月 26 日。
- 61三百万平方米： Frederik Balfour 和 Tim Culpan，“打造你 iPhone 的人”，彭博新闻，2010 年 9 月 9 日。
- 62来自更成功同事的残酷戏弄：《四川承诺帮富士康招工：公务员被迫进厂工》[四川承诺帮助富士康招工：公务员被迫进厂工作]，台湾网，2012年4月29日。
- 62河南官员“借调”工人：窦伊娃，《iPhone 如何在中国建立一座城市》，《华尔街日报》，2017 年 7 月 3 日。
- 62组装 iPhone 的“实习生”：袁阳，“富士康停止学龄实习生非法加班”，《金融时报》 ，2017 年 11 月 22 日。
- 62招募退役的中国人民解放军人员：张哲和刘约翰，“一家 iPhone 工厂需要工人：中国政府想要提供帮助”，《纽约时报》，2022 年 11 月 18 日。
- 62“我需要建造一座城市”： Helen Wang，作者于 2024 年 7 月 16 日对其进行的电话采访。
- 63八分之一的农村建筑：伯纳德·张、杰弗里·伊纳巴、雷姆·库哈斯和梁思宗，《大跃进：哈佛设计学院城市项目》（塔申出版社，2001 年），第 245 页。
- 65“[苹果产品]并非设计于”： Glenn Leibowitz，“苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克：这是我们在中国生产 iPhone 的首要原因（并非你所想）”， Inc.，2017 年 12 月 17 日。
- 652019 年，联合航空公司做出如下决定： Mikey Campbell，“苹果每年在联合航空航班上花费 1.5 亿美元，上海是第一目的地”， Apple Insider，2019 年 1 月 11 日。
- 662012 年的一篇报道：查尔斯·杜希格和基思·布拉德舍尔，《美国如何错失 iPhone 工作机会》，《纽约时报》 ，2012 年 1 月 21 日。
- 66“在美国，你本来可以拥有”：莱博维茨，“苹果公司首席执行官蒂姆·库克”。
- 66一位前苹果工程师： 2024 年 4 月 18 日与作者的电话采访。
- 67“如果您遇到煤气泄漏”： 2024 年 3 月 29 日对作者的电话采访。
- 67“智能手机战争带来的和平红利”：本·保克，《克里斯·安德森的顿悟》，《外交政策》 ，2024 年 11 月 20 日。
- 68供应链变得更加“红色”： 2021 年 11 月 24 日与作者的电话采访。
- 69最终价值的 25%：邢宇清和黄绍鹏，“中国在智能手机全球价值链中获取的价值：三款智能手机的故事”，结构变化与经济动态58，C 期（2021 年）：256-266。
- 72我最喜欢的关于中国的书籍之一：西蒙·莱斯，《无用之殿：文集》（纽约书评出版社，2014 年），第 242 页。
- 72日本伊势神宫（或伊势神宫）：布莱恩·波特，“伊势神宫与赋能技术金字塔”，工作范围，2023 年 2 月 3 日。
- 73“我会把这些职责留给你们”： Junko Edahiro，“每 20 年重建一次，使圣地永存：伊势神宫的千宫仪式”，JFS 日本可持续发展协会，2013 年 9 月 10 日。
- 74花费 6900 万美元重新学习： “核武器：美国国家核安全管理局和国防部需要更有效地管理库存寿命延长计划”，美国政府问责局，2009 年 3 月。
- 74英特尔传奇前首席执行官安迪·格鲁夫：安迪·格鲁夫，“美国如何创造就业机会”，彭博新闻，2010 年 7 月 1 日。
- 76降至仅 1100 万： “所有制造业员工 [MANEMP]”，圣路易斯联邦储备银行，2025 年 1 月 10 日。
- 76Michael Boskin 打趣道： Michael Schrage，“薯片与电脑芯片：无论从哪个角度看都是高科技”，《华盛顿邮报》，1993 年 1 月 21 日。
- 76每年国防开支近 1 万亿美元： “图表集：国防开支”，彼得·G·彼得森基金会，2025 年 2 月 3 日。
- 77比原计划晚一到三年：梅根·埃克斯坦，“由于劳动力和供应问题，美国海军舰艇项目面临长达数年的延误”，《防务新闻》，2024 年 4 月 3 日。
- 77“极其痛苦”： David Gelles、James B. Stewart、Jessica Silver-Greenberg 和 Kate Kelly，“埃隆·马斯克详述特斯拉动荡带来的‘极其痛苦’的个人损失”，《纽约时报》，2018 年 8 月 17 日。
- 79比亚迪销量下滑： “中国电动汽车制造商比亚迪2019年利润下降42%，受补贴削减影响”，路透社，2020年4月21日。
- 79特斯拉产生“鲶鱼效应”：赵新月、博源，《从‘年产过千万’看‘特斯拉效应’》【从“年产量过千万”看“特斯拉效应”】，人民网，2024年11月16日。
- 79“与凤凰共舞”：杨杰，“没有这家中国公司及其首席执行官，蒂姆·库克就造不出iPhone”，《华尔街日报》，2023年10月23日更新。
- 81经济研究表明： Lee G. Branstetter、李光伟和任梦佳，《挑选赢家？政府补贴与企业》“中国的生产力”，工作论文第 30699 号，美国国家经济研究局，2022 年 12 月。
- 83苹果公司最新供应商报告显示：广东有72家供应商，美国有26家，印度有14家，越南有35家。“苹果供应商名单2023”，苹果公司，2024年。
- 84“实体经济是基础”：张伟夫、胡亚北，《实体经济：经济发展的着力点和支撑点》[实体经济：经济发展的着力点和支撑点]，EOL，2023年7月13日。
- 84“虚拟”经济：胡亚北、张伟存，《形成新增长引擎将着力点放在实体经济上》，南京日报，2017年7月19日。
- 84419个工业产品类别：《构建以先进制造业为骨干的现代化产业体系______访工业和信息化部党组书记、部长金壮龙》【构建以先进制造业为骨干的现代工业体系——访工业和信息化部党组书记、部长金壮龙】，人民日报，2024年1月10日。
- 84Batson 还发现： Andrew Batson，“中国终究还是想要那些低端产业”，Tangled Woof（博客），2023 年 10 月 4 日。
- 84“实体经济”：习近平，《国家中长期经济社会发展战略若干重大问题》，《求是》，2020年10月31日。
- 86例如：王晓东，《“产业党”与“情感党”研究》，战略翻译中心，2011年1月1日，译本2023年10月。
- 87他于 2005 年出版的著作：迪伦·莱维·金 (Dylan Levi King)，《中国走向零年》， Palladium，2021 年 4 月 9 日；钟庆, 刷盘子还是读书 [洗碗还是学习？】（当代中国出版社，2005）。
- 87马千祖：笔名任崇豪。
- 88中国尚未准备好断绝关系：薇薇安·王，《中国民族主义教父重新考虑》，《纽约时报》 ，2022 年 10 月 27 日。
- 89刘慈欣科幻三部曲：刘慈欣，《 三体》（Tor Publishing，2014）。
- 89“血染的金字塔”：刘，《三体》，229。
- 90中国商品出口：埃里克·马丁和安娜·蒙泰罗，“尽管政治分歧扩大，但美中商品贸易仍创下纪录”，彭博新闻，2023 年 2 月 7 日，2023 年 2 月 8 日更新。
- 92官方媒体头条新闻报道：赵一萌，“华强北贸易商用电脑芯片生产口红”，《中国日报》，2021年2月3日更新。
The other spiritual wellspring comes from the use of actual psychedelics, which are easy to find in Chiang Mai. Thailand was the first country in Asia to decriminalize marijuana, where pot stores are nearly as common as coffee shops. It seemed like everyone had a story about using mushrooms, ayahuasca, or even stronger magic. The best psychedelic mushrooms are supposed to grow in elephant dung, leading to a story I heard of a legendary set of backpackers who have been hopping from one dung heap to another on a long, unbroken trip.
I spoke with the young Chinese who are in Chiang Mai to have a good time and also with the longer-term residents about why they’ve decided to reside there. None of them made the decision to emigrate easily.
Yiju was one of the people starting over in Chiang Mai. He’s a friendly software developer in his thirties, pudgy from too much time in front of a computer screen. He worked for a while in Silicon Valley before he found himself caught up in the cryptocurrency craze in 2018. So he returned to China at a time when it was a major hub of cryptocurrency activities. Like many people in crypto, Yiju embodies a certain idealism. That came through with his eagerness to announce his views in manifestos filled with punchy statements on how the economy should operate and how people need to be kinder. Unlike many people in crypto, he was also given to quiet reflection on the limits of technology as well as what China means to him.
“China feels like a space in which the ceiling keeps getting lower,” Yiju told me one day. “To stay means that we have to walk around with our heads lowered and our backs hunched.”
Young people in Chiang Mai told me they’ve felt a quiet shattering of their worldviews over the decade of Xi Jinping’s rule. These are people who grew up in bigger cities and attended good universities, some of them overseas, which endowed them with certain expectations: that they could pursue meaningful careers, that society would gain greater freedoms, and that China would continue to be more integrated with the rest of the world. These aspirations have mostly shriveled. Though their lives in big cities can be quite pleasant, with new milk tea shops to try or art spaces to take selfies around, they work in jobs that are stressful and menial. They feel smothered by political controls. After the lockdowns, many of them grew aware that they had an unwelcome tendency to inflect every future scenario with a sense of catastrophe.
Not everyone has been thrilled with the move to Thailand, where they don’t foresee great job prospects. They haven’t all mustered the courage to tell their parents where they really are: Mom and Dad are under the impression that they’re studying abroad in Europe. That can lead to elaborate games in order to maintain the subterfuge, like drawing curtains to darken the room when they video chat with family, since they’re supposed to be in a totally different time zone, or keeping up with weather conditions in the city where they’re supposed to be so that they’re not surprised when parents ask about rain or snow.
Yiju fled in the wake of the white paper protests against Covid. When police sought him out for questioning, he went to hide in a monastery. Many of the other residents in Chiang Mai had participated in the protests against Covid restrictions and have had friends who were arrested. Everyone had experienced some alienation. A few lost their jobs in Beijing’s crackdown on digital platforms. Several had worked in domestic Chinese media, seriously disgruntled by censors. Writers in particular have a hard time dealing with the shock of working for months on a story only for censors to delete it hours after publication. The first time that happens you’re enraged, the second time you’re embittered, the third time you rùn.
In Chiang Mai, these creative types gathered around a bookstore founded by a journalist. Nowhere Books had its first store in Taiwan before opening a second branch in Chiang Mai, offering books that can’t be bought on the mainland. Nowhere’s references to politics are subtle. Mixed with popular books—novels, travel guides, cookbooks—are works by authors that couldn’t possibly be published in mainland China. The store is proud to carry a Chinese translation of the Whole Earth Catalog, the Californian counterculture magazine published through the late 1960s and early ’70s that advocated for each reader to “conduct his own education.” And around the bookstore are faintly subversive signs: a sticker of the Urumqi Road sign, the focal point of Shanghai’s protests, and jesting passports handed out by the bookstore inviting patrons to become citizens of the Republic of Nowhere.
Many of my friends, both Chinese and foreign, have rùn too.
Shanghai’s foreign population was in decline even before the pandemic: Between 2010 and 2020, China’s most internationalized city lost a quarter of its long-term foreign residents. Since the lockdowns, this population has taken another big drop. Shanghai drew foreigners and Chinese who were excited about the economic and creative boom in the city. For business executives, a posting to China used to pave the way toward the C-suite. That’s starting to feel less the case since China has become such a different market (given political complexities and data controls) that a posting there is now viewed as a quagmire. As China’s economy slowed, people wondered why they were living in a place with uncertain growth and a lot of drama.
Xi might not be so upset with the creative types who want out. He might not be much bothered either by the foreign expats leaving Shanghai, even if they work at important companies like Apple or Tesla. But Beijing has displayed greater concern about the number of rich people taking their money out of the country.
My friend Jessie is the daughter in a wealthy family, growing up in both her native Shanghai and Vancouver. A tall girl with curly hair, she has usually been more interested in frequenting fitness classes than in reading the news. She had previously not paid much attention to political events, feeling like it wasn’t worth her while to dwell on matters that were often gloomy and always impenetrable.
Then she lived through Shanghai’s two-month lockdown. Subsequently, Jessie started to follow politics. “This stuff could affect us, you know,” Jessie told me one day while she was visiting in New York. She was talking about the Third Plenum meeting of the Central Committee.
“Could it?” I asked, surprised to hear that she was monitoring this weeklong party gathering.
“You never know what they’re going to do,” Jessie said. When I asked her whether party announcements have ever prompted her to act, she replied no. Paying attention is already a novel activity for her. It might, I feel, lead to more active political engagement in the future.
Jessie is keeping her roots in Shanghai, although she plans to spend an increasing amount of her time in Vancouver. Many other wealthy Chinese have decided to settle elsewhere for good. Hard numbers are difficult to work out, but one UK-based emigration firm estimated that nearly 14,000 millionaires emigrated from China in 2023 and over 15,000 in 2024. Parts of the United States popular with Chinese, like Irvine, California, have seen a surge in new homebuyers. Both the United States and Canada have reported a doubling in the number of Chinese migrants who have obtained permanent residence after making a large investment (which could mean buying property): from 2,000 to 4,000 in Canada between 2019 and 2023, and from 3,900 to 7,500 in the United States between 2019 and 2024.
Less fortunate Chinese take a different path to the United States: through a grueling trek across the southwest border. US border officials have apprehended rising numbers of Chinese nationals: from 450 in 2021 rocketing to 38,000 in 2024. The flow diminished in the second half of 2024 due to tighter border enforcement. But still there have been more than a thousand Chinese nationals attempting to cross the border on foot each month for two years. Many have flown to Ecuador (which did not demand a visa from Chinese nationals until July 2024) and then have taken the perilous road through the Darién Gap.
The creative diaspora has launched cultural events in the United States. New York and Washington, DC, have new Chinese bookstores like Nowhere in Chiang Mai. Once a month in New York, a feminist group operates an open-mic show for comedians to perform their acts in Mandarin. They sell out so quickly that I was lucky to get a ticket. On a chilly day in October, I went to an Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan that rented its basement for shows. Around a hundred people gathered that day to hear ten women performing a “story slam” rather than the usual standup. One person spoke about how she connived her way into an exclusive Berlin nightclub, and several shared accounts of their dating lives. Most stories tended to be sad: dealing with a layoff or the death of a grandmother. The audience reacted with tremendous encouragement whenever the performers’ voices cracked or their storytelling faltered.
A decade ago, it might have been difficult to imagine that New York would have a set of feminists organizing standup in Mandarin through which runs a streak of political discontent. As Xi became a more assertive leader, more Chinese have become unhappy with China’s direction. What is most surprising is that desperate migrants are willing to abandon the “China Dream” that Xi has preached and that they are willing to embark on a dangerous, monthslong journey to cross the US southwestern border.
Why are so many Chinese still leaving? Because entire generations feel whipsawed by the engineering state’s violent mood swings. Their jobs, and indeed their lives, in China felt like dead ends. They’re not making great money in Thailand either, but they are able to have a lot of fun in its relaxed atmosphere.
Xi has talked about achieving national greatness without backing it up with economic growth. The trouble is that when people suffer—as they do through a property collapse, high unemployment, or lockdowns—they start to wonder what they are really getting. It’s certainly not enrichment. When they’re given a cold, hard smack in the face by something that certainly doesn’t feel like greatness, they become unmoored. This sense of alienation has been a big reason to rùn.
After six years in China, I missed pluralism. It is wonderful to be in a society made up of many voices, not only an official register meant to speak over all the rest. I missed the ambient friendliness of Americans combined with a government that mostly leaves people alone. Most of all, I missed the ability to order books. To be able to read physical books, I relied on my folks to mail me periodic packages, usually in batches of twenty kilograms, while accepting the uncertainty that any of them might be confiscated by customs agents. It heightened the physical ecstasy of opening the box to see how many passed through the censor’s gauntlet. But it was a thrill I could have lived without.
So I had rùn myself after the collapse of zero-Covid, when I moved from Shanghai to Yale Law School. Shanghai has many things superior to that of any American city: walkable and safe streets, vibrant street life, splendid food, an ease to go anywhere in the city or the country through mass transit. It was the Chinese government’s overbearing presence—censorship, intolerance of dissent, a lingering threat of catastrophe—that pushed me away. The operators of the Great Firewall decided that my little personal website, where I publish my annual letters, should be blocked. I am still puzzled.
I changed my mind about several things over my time in China.
When I moved to Hong Kong at the start of 2017, I entertained the idea that we were living at the start of an “Asian Century,” in which China and India would restore Asia to the economically dominant role it played centuries ago. I didn’t believe it, necessarily. But it didn’t feel like a crazy scenario. Donald Trump, after all, had been shooting admiring glances at autocratic countries while unloading his petulance on Canada, Europe, as well as other American allies. Xi, by contrast, displayed a patient resolve to strengthen Chinese capabilities. Parts of that remain real, although I now have a better appreciation of China’s weaknesses. There are many things that China will be successful at, but I departed the country with a better appreciation of the self-limiting features of the Chinese system. Most notably, the Communist Party distrusts and fears the Chinese people, limiting their potential for flourishing.
The engineering state tends to begin impressively and end disastrously. The pursuit of zero-Covid isn’t the only example of that tendency I lived through. The regulatory storm that Xi unleashed against China’s digital platforms is another case in point.
In May 2024, while attending a symposium of entrepreneurs and investors in Shandong province, Xi Jinping asked the group, “Why are we producing fewer and fewer unicorns?” This stray comment created a minor ripple online. Why is China no longer a leader in producing the sorts of tech start-ups that are valued over $1 billion? Before their comments were censored, people posted, “But sir, you are the cause”; “Is the leadership compound in Beijing connected to the Internet?”; and “They were frightened away by blank pieces of paper.”
Xi’s question had produced fresh worry among businesses. Authoritarian systems aren’t good at disseminating bad news. The coronavirus had spread, after all, because local officials in Wuhan refused to let the news of a virus disturb their political serenity as they arrested medical whistleblowers. Companies and investors therefore wondered whether Xi was genuinely unaware of how much his policies had destroyed major segments of the economy. Perhaps nobody had told Xi that he was the most feared unicorn hunter of all.
For a while, China produced a herd so lusty that it looked like they were on the verge of outpacing even the unicorns in Silicon Valley. They raced neck and neck against their American counterparts in e-commerce, ride hailing, and social media. Sometimes they had help from Beijing—most notably when the state drove out Google and Facebook to the benefit of local platforms like Baidu and Tencent. Sometimes they outcompeted American firms, like Amazon and Uber, more or less fairly through brutal wars of maneuver. ByteDance had created a new category of short-video apps with TikTok, while new e-commerce platforms sprang up to challenge Alibaba. That company’s flamboyant founder, Jack Ma, would have fit in among the more eccentric personalities from Silicon Valley.
During this era of light regulation, China’s unicorns grew into mighty beasts. Lu Wei was the director of the Cyberspace Administration, making him the chief internet regulator. He was a colorful character in that role. When I visited start-ups in Beijing around 2018, I heard lurid stories: Lu supposedly took equity in companies and then placed his regulatory thumb on the scales in their favor; sometimes, he would walk through an office and remark on how pretty a female employee was, expecting executives to take his hint. His reign was characterized by regulatory forbearance, perhaps because he was a personal beneficiary of the sector’s growth.
In 2018, Lu fell from grace. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled Lu from the Communist Party and published an unusually explicit list of his crimes. It went beyond the usual accusation of bribery to include charges of “deceiving the central leadership” and “trading power for sex.” Lu subsequently wrote a letter so self-abasing that it was featured in a national museum celebrating forty years of China’s policy of reform and opening.
China’s tech companies were on the verge of convincing global investors that they could reach the valuations of Silicon Valley giants. At home, however, they produced similar forms of discontent as their American counterparts, facing allegations of exercising corporate power against smaller firms and insufficiently protecting data. Lu Wei’s fall took the era of light regulation down with him.
New regulators subsequently announced that digital platforms would be subject to “rectification measures.” A former ByteDance executive has publicly accused the company of facilitating bribes to Lu. And ByteDance became the target of an investigation, which would later produce a groveling public apology from that company’s founder. “I have been filled with remorse and guilt, entirely unable to sleep,” Zhang Yiming, then CEO, wrote to his staff. “Our product has been incommensurate with socialist core values. . . . I am responsible because I failed to live up to the guidance and expectations supervisory organs have demanded.”
But China’s tech platforms continued to grow larger, developing certain digital capabilities that the state did not have and barely understood. Ominous rumblings emerged from the central leadership. Xi issued warnings against the “disorderly expansion of capital” and promised to “deepen structural reforms.” Starting in late 2020, Beijing declared open season on the digital economy. Every government agency lined up to take shots.
Securities regulators derailed the public listing of Ant Financial, a fintech company founded by Jack Ma, accusing it of sowing financial instability. Data regulators investigated Didi, a ridesharing app that had just gone public on the New York Stock Exchange, for vague charges of endangering national security. The press regulator announced that minors were permitted to play video games during only three designated hours per week: between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Antitrust authorities launched a flurry of investigations against big platforms. Even the Ministry of Education took part in the great hunt: It declared that the online education sector, which offered supplementary lessons outside the formal schooling system, could no longer produce profit.
Over the course of 2021, hardly any major Chinese tech company emerged unscathed. Xi’s regulatory storm wiped out a trillion dollars of market value from Chinese companies. New Oriental, one of the education companies, lost 90 percent of its market cap and then laid off 60 percent of its employees. Alibaba toppled from being an $800 billion company to just a quarter of that size two years later. Jack Ma disappeared from public view for months after the cancellation of Ant Financial’s IPO. Meanwhile, securities regulators in both the United States and China were making it more difficult for companies to be publicly listed. And Xi’s pursuit of zero-Covid pulverized service industries targeted by tech companies. The economy that emerged out of the pandemic is characterized by high youth unemployment, shaky household confidence, and limp consumer demand.
Unicorns aren’t easily bred on such impoverished fields. Especially not when there’s a giant hunter stalking to ensure they conform to socialist core values. Consequently, fewer entrepreneurs are founding start-ups, and venture investment in China has collapsed.
Xi’s reining in of tech giants are not altogether different from what a lot of American and European regulators wish to do to Silicon Valley. Every government in the world is grappling with companies that have too much influence over the flow of information and commerce. Individually, China’s regulations around antitrust, data protection, or financial risks may pass muster on technocratic grounds. But Beijing issued regulations with a speed and ferocity that no other state can match. It did so for reasons that the West would not: to shift investment and talent into state-prioritized industries and to crush the power that these companies were gaining at the expense of the state.
That’s another way that the US and Chinese political systems are inversions of each other. In the United States, the political drama is around legislative processes and Supreme Court rulings; implementation of policy is quickly forgotten as political attention moves to the next big issue. In China, the policymaking process is conducted significantly in secret, then its outcome is dumped on the people.
Whereas the United States or Europe might tussle with a Silicon Valley tech giant for years in court and then extract a few billion dollars in fines, Chinese companies don’t challenge administrative actions. Rather, they issue supine statements as the founder of ByteDance did, or as Didi wrote after it received an enormous fine, “We sincerely thank the relevant authorities for their inspection and guidance.”
The regulations weren’t only an exercise of technocratic governance. They added up to a sweeping exertion of political control. China’s crackdown consisted of both technocratic regulation and an effort to impose political discipline on a freewheeling sector. Xi has forcefully reminded China’s tech companies that they cannot represent a power center that challenges the state’s sovereignty. It was, in other words, an attempt to change the cultural mindset of companies. The Communist Party reminded them that it retains the discretionary power to engineer all aspects of society, which means putting tech companies in their place.
There might be something to be said for this sort of approach. What if, say, the US government had responded to the 2008 financial crisis by reshaping Wall Street’s risk management culture rather than engaging in the endless negotiations that yielded a 2,300-page statute that nobody understands? But Xi’s attempt to achieve cultural change has left people disgruntled and whole industries disfigured.
The trouble with Xi Jinping is that he is perhaps 60 percent correct on everything.* He’s driving toward a usually admirable long-term goal. But in the name of achieving change, the engineering state delivers such beatings on people or industries that they are unable to pick themselves back up again. Even if Xi’s judgments are right, his brute-force solutions reliably worsen things. Does big tech have too much power? Fine, but stomping out their businesses has traumatized entrepreneurs. Are housing developers taking on too much debt? Yes, but driving many of them toward default subsequently triggered a collapse in homebuyer confidence, prolonging a property slump. Does the government need to rein in corruption? Definitely, but Xi has terrorized the bureaucracy to the point of paralysis.
Sometimes, the only thing scarier than China’s problems are Beijing’s solutions.
That is one of the defining characteristics of the engineering state. The Chinese government often resembles a crew of skilled firefighters who douse blazes they themselves ignited. China’s national effort contained the spread of Covid, for a while, after Wuhan officials did nothing to prevent it. Decades earlier, the engineering state overreacted to its population growth with the one-child policy. Economic confidence wouldn’t be so fragile if it weren’t for regulatory thunderclaps emerging from Beijing.
Here is where the lawyerly society shines. We don’t have to worry about the US government imposing the one-child policy or zero-Covid, because it would never with the former and could never with the latter. The United States also wouldn’t have caged so many of its tech companies. Lawyers, as I wrote in my introduction, are excellent servants of the rich. Chinese tech founders (and their investors) are indeed very rich. Given the absence of lawyers and a political culture sympathetic to rights, they could find no protection.
After alienating so many people, has Xi decided to change course? No, he’s doubling down on promoting engineers to leadership. When Xi coronated himself as China’s leader for a third term in 2022, he unveiled a new leadership team stacked with executives of China’s aerospace and defense industries. They are people with practical experience managing megaprojects. Yuan Jiajun, chief designer of China’s crewed space program, became party secretary of Chongqing; Li Ganjie, a nuclear engineer, became the party’s chief personnel manager; and Zhang Guoqing, a former executive of one of China’s largest defense contractors, became a vice premier.
Social engineering will increase as well. In 2018, Xi praised teachers as engineers of the soul, a phrase first used by Joseph Stalin a century ago. Xi’s instructions have increasingly moved toward physicality. He has talked about how love of the party and the country needs to start young, which means to “grab little ones from the cradle.” The party’s messages need to “enter the mind, enter the heart, and enter the hands.” Beijing’s public security office has promised to get up close and personal in its attempts to offer “zero-distance service.” These efforts don’t sound less sinister in Chinese than they do in any language.
Since Xi started his third term in 2022, he has warned ever more darkly about “extreme” scenarios. In speeches to China’s national security community, he has spoken about “ensuring normal operation of the national economy under extreme circumstances.” What does that mean? As usual, the top leader is oblique, but it suggests that he’s worried that China will one day be cut off from the rest of the world. “We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios,” Xi said in 2023. “And be ready to withstand the major test of high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms.” So he has surrounded himself with executives from the aerospace and defense agencies. The intention, it feels to me, is to build China into a great fortress.
第四章：一个孩子
What sort of dangerous storm is Xi preparing for? Probably outright conflict with the West. Under Xi’s leadership, the engineering state is working seriously to harden itself to win a war, should one ever come.
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- 122在一篇雄心勃勃的文章中：宋健，《系统工程与新技术革命》，《人民日报》 ，1984年9月5日。
- 122比宋建早1400年：《中国日报》2011年1月25日更新的“宋建：一位杰出的科学家”。
- 123产科病房开始关闭：赵金钊、潘瑞、王新桐，《深度报道：产科病房成为中国出生率下降的最新受害者》，财新网，2024年6月19日。
- 123预计成人纸尿裤的销量将超过婴儿纸尿裤： Edward White 和 Leo Lewis，“纸尿裤制造商将中国市场重心从婴儿转向老年人”，《金融时报》，2021 年 11 月 28 日。
- 123比中国早十四年： “中国为应对人口灾难而进行的艰苦斗争”，《经济学人》，2024 年 4 月 9 日。
- 1242023年会议： “十四届全国人大三次会议召开第二次全体会议”，中国政府网。
- 124“剩女真的值得我们同情吗？”： Leta Hong Fincher，《剩女：中国性别不平等的复兴》，第1版（Zed Books，2014），第3页。
- 125发现婚姻不忠：洪·芬奇，《剩女》，20。
- 125一位前妇女联合会雇员：沈璐和齐丽艳，“中国正在敦促女性多生孩子：许多人说不”，《华尔街日报》，2024 年 1 月 2 日。
- 125对无子女者征税：夏洛特·高，“为鼓励更多生育，中国专家提议设立生育基金，征收无子女税” ， 《外交官》，2018 年 8 月 17 日。
- 125未署名评论：《中国报道网时评：落实三孩政策党员干部应见行动》，中国报道网，2021年12月9日。
- 126我认为海因里希·希姆莱：引自约翰·沙普托，《血之法则：纳粹的思考与行动》（哈佛大学出版社，2018 年），第 343 页。
- 1262021 年中国综合社会调查： “中国的低生育率陷阱”，《经济学人》，2024 年 3 月 21 日。
- 126女性对此表示难以置信：季思琪，《中国人口：某县要求“剩女”嫁给失业男子，引发众怒》，《南华早报》，2022年1月28日。
- 126下降到 40%：琳达·博利瓦尔，“伊桑·米歇尔森揭露中国离婚法庭中的性别不公”，印第安纳大学汉密尔顿·卢格学院，布卢明顿，2023 年 7 月 13 日。
- 126600家医院获得官方授权： Farah Master，“中国发起打击非法生育治疗的运动”，路透社，2023年7月11日。
- 127一位女士发帖： “你被街道办催孕了吗？” 【居委会催你怀孕了吗？】，中国数字时代，2024年10月21日。
- 127可能对公共安全构成威胁： Phoebe Zhang，“爱情与婚姻：中国大理白地区承诺帮助其 33,000 名单身汉找到妻子”，《南华早报》，2024 年 8 月 24 日。
Xi has already put up higher walls. In 2018, while I was living in Hong Kong, I started to tell people that China might close its doors in forty years, by the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic. At that point, it will once again become the Celestial Empire, its people serenely untroubled by the turmoils of barbarians beyond its borders. Most of my friends reacted with disbelief, saying that it was unimaginable to close a country once it has globalized. It turned out that I was off by a centenary: China had been mostly shut in 2021, a hundred years after the founding of the Communist Party. The pandemic was like a practice run—an exercise in what life in China would be like with its doors closed to the outside world. Xi apparently liked what he saw. After the pandemic, Xi has doubled down on self-reliance.
One of the things I’ve been surprised by in recent years is how many Americans who used to make regular trips no longer care to visit China. These were businesspeople, investors, and academics who are familiar with China. Many of them felt real fear that they would no longer be able to depart once they entered. Most have nothing to worry about, I’m sure. But it is hard to put that fear away after China took two Canadians hostage and after it has imposed so many exit bans on foreign nationals over business disputes or drug charges. Even those who are not afraid of detention cite the annoyance of having their digital lives cut off. Without a VPN, an American traveling to China will have a hard time communicating with her family back home (since many messaging and email apps are blocked), a hard time glancing at news headlines from the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, and a hard time navigating cities without Chinese payment apps.
I returned to China only once after the dissolution of zero-Covid. At the end of 2024, the country felt more fortresslike than before the pandemic. Shanghai is strangely muted, restaurants substantially less full, the shopping districts lacking vitality. Consumers clearly have less spending power. People have felt profound economic uncertainty after the economy failed to pick back up following the end of Covid controls in 2022. It’s not encouraging for the future of Chinese and American relations that there are only about a thousand American students studying in China. Just before the pandemic, there were ten times that many.
China had been moving away from the West. When the Communist Party selected Xi to be general secretary in 2012, the party had reached an important decision: that China would not attempt to try to be like the United States. The financial crisis that started on Wall Street in the preceding years had disturbed China’s leaders. Should China really adopt a system prone to such instability? Around this time, they settled a debate about constitutionalism. Previously, some Chinese legal scholars attempted to advance the notion that the Communist Party should be bound by laws. Lawyers had won striking victories in the protection of individual liberties, garnering significant domestic media as they did so. Then the victories slowed. And the chief justice of China’s supreme court publicly denounced the idea of judicial independence, an action that elevated the party above the law. It is clear, in retrospect, that the selection of Xi was part of a course set by the Communist Party not to follow in the United States’ footsteps.
China’s economy is faltering while the central government becomes more repressive. It is facing more problems around debt, hostile diplomatic relations with the West, and demographic decline, which was a problem even before many attempted to emigrate. All of this is exacerbated by an unpredictable political factor: Aging autocrats easily get cranky, which is a problem since Xi is likely to stay in office into his eighties.
Is the Asian Century still on? Questions involving Asia’s future are more subtle and more interesting than who “wins.” Even though I don’t believe that China will meaningfully surpass the United States as a global power, it still represents a terrific challenge.
The engineering state remains incredibly capable. Though Xi Jinping has grown increasingly comfortable with disregarding economic growth in favor of national security, it doesn’t mean the country has turned into North Korea. Chinese firms are still operating in a robust business environment, though one that is definitely more constrained. The country’s relations with the West are not so friendly, but there will still be trade and educational exchange. And China will still be a giant market with enormous numbers of ambitious people who want to make their mark. Only now, it is steadily working to insulate itself from a turbulent world filled with conflict.
The engineering state still has many strengths. There is one thing I haven’t changed my mind about since 2017: I remain more confident than ever that China will become a technological leader in manufacturing industries.
Marxists like to reason through contradictions. What is the central contradiction facing China? I submit that we must reconcile two realities when we read the headlines. First, the rich, the creative, and the desperate have chosen to rùn from the economic and political gloom that pervades Xi’s third term. Second, the manufacturing sector continues to go from strength to strength in the mastery of electric vehicles, clean technology, and other advanced technologies.
How might they be reconciled? With the idea of the engineering state.
The reckless interventions that engineers have dealt to economy and society have left many people seriously disgruntled, spurring them to move their wealth or themselves abroad. Meanwhile, China has embarked on a quest to build a technologically powerful country. On that, I believe it might succeed. My view is that Xi will not achieve his bigger gambit, which is to propel China to displace the United States as the world’s preeminent nation, measured not only by economic size but also diplomatic influence, cultural output, and national prestige. The control neurosis of the engineers is the fundamental limit to China’s power. But it will also push China to be an advanced manufacturer with dominant positions in many of the high-tech supply chains of the twenty-first century, with military capacity to match and a good chance to challenge US hegemony in Asia.
Engineers are bad at several things. They’re not very good, for example, at producing appealing cultural products.
During the height of the pandemic, Xi declared that China needs to become more “lovable.” The country’s image had suffered as people around the world blamed China for the spread of the virus. But China faced a more fundamental problem than the pandemic. Over the past forty years, the engineering state has done a terrible job of creating cultural output that the rest of the world finds appealing.
I regularly ask Americans what sort of Chinese cultural products they enjoy. Even cosmopolitan people need to take a moment to ponder. Go on, think about it. The answers tend to be niche. People cite the movies of Zhang Yimou, who directed Raise the Red Lantern, while the more art house–inclined bring up Jia Zhangke. Those who read sci-fi are likely to mention Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem. TikTok might be another reply, although I’m not sure how much that counts, since the app doesn’t often serve Chinese content overseas. Collectors of modern art and video gamers tend to have more to say. Broadly, however, most Americans don’t seek out music, art, movies, or literature from China.
It’s not, I think, out of prejudice. Americans have had no problem embracing the cultural products of East Asia. Japan produced a wave of pop culture that included animé and manga, Nobel Prize–winning novelists, and popular consumer products like the Sony Walkman and Nintendo Gameboy. South Korea continues to churn out hits, whether these are pop bands or breakouts like Parasite or Squid Game. Chinese youths are as likely to watch a Korean drama or a Hollywood movie as they are to pick a domestic equivalent.
Four decades after China liberalized, its contributions to global cultures are mostly confined to artistic fringes. It is because engineers don’t know how to persuade. The Communist Party insists on a history in which the party is always correct and where all errors come from traitors or foreigners. Rather than acknowledge fault and tell persuasive stories, the instinct of the engineering state is simply to censor alternative narratives. Xi comes across as someone who is a little bit too eager for groveling respect from the rest of the world, which is exactly why he’ll never get it.
The issue isn’t that Chinese people are somehow less imaginative. Rather, the state’s deadening hand has suppressed their creativity. I know that Chinese kids are creative and capable of driving a surge of lovable culture if only they didn’t have to face an overbearing censor. After a stand-up comic in Beijing made a joke in 2023 that deployed a military slogan as the punchline, censors crushed the comedy industry. The comedian, Li Haoshi, was detained, his social media platforms suspended, and the studio that employed him fined $2 million. Comedy troupes, which have to submit their scripts to censors weeks before any performance, found their shows canceled throughout the country. For months afterward, comedy clubs across Shanghai were closed.
Engineers can’t take a joke. It’s hard for art to thrive in an atmosphere of political paranoia plus social control. Today, Chinese artists and writers have to follow socialist core values, which cannot carry a whiff of political criticism. Directors are finding their movies inexplicably pulled from theaters or international film festivals. Most of the movies released domestically are nationalist blockbusters, sappy romances, or supernatural action flicks. No wonder these aren’t exportable. Even among captive Chinese audiences, they’re not necessarily popular.
The Communist Party’s Propaganda Department has treated the media like a manicured garden. It has walled out a lot of foreign content, blocking access to Wikipedia, social media, and many news sites. Only a handful of Hollywood films a year are approved for showing in domestic theaters. Artists know they have to trim their content to be in line with political sensibilities or be uprooted. And propaganda authorities spend a lot of effort to bolster official voices. Step into a bookstore in China and very likely the desk at the entrance will feature a table full of collections of Xi’s essays, pristinely arranged (and mostly untouched). Go into a museum and you might find one of his quotes plastered on the wall, having nothing to do with any exhibition. Even aggregators that are not run by the state, including ByteDance, always reserve the prominent spaces for messages directed by propaganda authorities.
The control neurosis of engineers is also an obstacle to another characteristic of a great power: a global currency. The US dollar is overwhelmingly the world’s dominant currency, while China’s renminbi accounts for 3 percent of global payments. That share has barely grown over a decade. Beijing has imposed a stiff system of capital controls to prevent money from easily moving out, which promises greater stability for the country’s highly leveraged financial system. These are exactly the sorts of restrictions that are anathema to global financial institutions. So long as Beijing insists on capital controls, there’s a ceiling on how much the rest of the world will want its currency.
China’s rise has faltered for many reasons. But there is one thing that it has continued to do well. What do engineers like to do? Build. That has produced considerable benefits at home for spreading material benefits throughout the country, even in very poor provinces. It has helped build food and energy resilience throughout the economy. The engineering state is still on track to become an advanced manufacturer that dominates most of the tech supply chains of the twenty-first century. And the focus on building is winning China some degree of support in developing countries as well.
Exporting China’s infrastructure is core to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one of Xi’s signature initiatives. Chinese firms have taken their expertise in building roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, dams, and power plants abroad. And they sometimes also bring the sorts of surveillance systems and censorship tools that find eager customers among autocratic leaders. They have gone on a spending spree overseas, with $1 trillion worth of loans outstanding in 150 countries. China has financed trains in Southeast Asia, ports in Europe, light rail in Africa, roads, bridges, libraries, sports stadiums, and many other things besides. According to Deloitte, China has become the single largest financier of infrastructure in Africa, building one in four projects on the continent.
Its results are mixed. Some of the infrastructure projects have helped cement China as a trade hub: Its high-speed rail link with neighboring Laos, for example, has facilitated exports and investment. But not even Chinese construction firms are immune to cost overruns and project delays when they build abroad. One of the BRI’s flagship projects is a high-speed rail line connecting Indonesia’s capital Jakarta with the city of Bandung. Though the railway has high use, Chinese builders went a billion dollars over budget and completed it four years late. Locals have complained that BRI projects tend to bring the entire workforce from China. Several countries that signed on to the initiative have since withdrawn, most notably Italy. Two photographs have circulated on the Chinese internet: of the Belt and Road Forum in 2017, when Xi Jinping was surrounded by 120 world leaders, and of the same forum in 2023, when there were only three dozen.
Even if Chinese construction companies haven’t always shown consistent respect for foreign workers and the local environment, and even though several Belt and Road countries are clamoring for debt forgiveness from Beijing, it appears to have been a net positive for China. On a narrow financial view, the World Bank found in 2024 that BRI projects have generated a positive return for Chinese lenders, though it is small. China has built useful infrastructure in countries that need it. So it’s not surprising that overall, developing countries hold China in more positive regard than do Americans and Europeans.
So China’s strategy has been to try to rally the rest of the developing world to its side. Proponents would say that China might not need great relations with the West when there are billions more people in the developing world, who have higher economic growth rates than the United States and Europe, which is all true. But consumers in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America have far less spending power than Europeans. And Chinese firms will have a harder time becoming global leaders when they’re barred from selling to richer consumers, giving them the profits to compete with incumbents that can. Meanwhile, diplomatic relationships are rarely uncomplicated, as manufacturers in developing countries have suffered from Chinese exports too. Officials from Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa have all pleaded with Beijing to have a more balanced trade relationship.
There’s one more thing that engineers are especially good at: building resilience into the economy. Rather than prizing efficiency and just-in-time deliveries, China has invested in redundancies and shock buffers.
China takes energy security seriously. The enormous effort it has made to build low-carbon capacity—solar, wind, and nuclear—has to be understood as part of a broader motivation to make the country dependent on energy sources within its borders. Beijing is trying to mitigate the pain if it ever loses access to sea-lanes that deliver its oil. That is also why, in 2023, China added twenty times more coal-burning capacity than the rest of the world put together. It is serious about addressing issues in climate change, yes. But Beijing is not turning its back on its rich coal reserves. That also explains why China is so enthusiastic about electrifying the auto fleet: It would rather burn domestic coal than Middle East oil to power its cars.
China takes food security seriously as well. Xi Jinping has been known to stand in the middle of a field of wheat while offering a folksy remark: for example, “The bowls of the Chinese people should be filled mostly with Chinese grain.” The pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made Beijing more conscious of food self-sufficiency. Chinese leaders have always been aware that food shortages have toppled imperial dynasties. And so one of the things that provincial governors are graded on is whether they are self-sufficient in rice and wheat, while mayors of major cities have to make sure that a variety of foods are grown locally. Mayors are graded on the amount of land they dedicate to vegetables and on ensuring that grocery markets are within walking distance for most residents, that there are no food safety scandals, and that prices are stable.
Get on a high-speed train out of Beijing, and you quickly hit farmland. Drive around the outskirts of Shanghai, and you find vast systems of greenhouses growing vegetables. After Xi’s remarks, China has in recent years attempted to reclaim salty marshes from the sea and turn idle mines into farmland, even though these are probably not very productive. I don’t mind, however, that China is demolishing golf courses, which are environmentally wasteful, and giving that land to farmers.
The cost of this self-sufficiency drive is that a lot of valuable land around cities is tied up for agriculture, in areas that aren’t always suited for growing crops. More important, much more of the Chinese workforce is kept rural: Despite its rapid urbanization over the last generation, China still has twice as much of its population living in rural areas as does the United States. The benefit is that during the Covid pandemic, China didn’t suffer intense food shortages. The farmland and greenhouses even around the most locked-down cities—Wuhan, Xi’an, and Shanghai—were producing food, but it couldn’t be delivered by an overwhelmed logistics system to every resident. Whereas China’s food system provided fairly stable production, food insecurity spiked among low-income Americans at the start of the pandemic in 2020. Meat and vegetable production is concentrated in relatively few places. When workers fell ill at slaughterhouses in the Midwest, grocery stores on the East Coast ran out of beef.
Food was not the only item to run short during the pandemic in the United States. Many different items were hard to find: furniture, semiconductors, personal protective equipment. The Chinese government and Chinese companies tend, on average, to maintain greater stockpiles of different goods so they have better resilience. The American corporate dictum is that “inventory is evil.” Although having spare capacity hurts various profit measures of Chinese firms, especially its state-owned enterprises, they are better able to leap into action in any crisis. A lot of manufacturing and food capacity is a useful thing to have if there is another pandemic—or a war.
The most important thing that the engineering state is set up to do is to build manufacturing capacity. Though China faces many headwinds, it is continuing to strengthen its position in a wide range of technologically intensive industries as well as in its military capacity. Even if the United States is able to outclass China in diplomacy, finance, and innovation, the contest between these two great powers is going to be close if the United States can’t build anything in the physical world.
The strongest wind in China’s sails is the entrenched technological workforce that preserves process knowledge that I wrote about in Chapter 3 on tech power. Though 50 percent of China’s economy might be dysfunctional, 5 percent is doing superbly well (an approximation I borrow from Greg Ip at the Wall Street Journal). That 5 percent is dangerous for American interests: It is China’s manufacturing capability, chiseling away at the American industrial base.
Remember that Chinese companies totally dominate many parts of the clean technology supply chain, especially related to solar and batteries. They’re still exporting electric vehicles around the world (though many of those exports are products of foreign companies like Tesla). They’ve gained ground on all sorts of advanced manufacturing, like consumer drones, industrial robotics, and steel presses. China is still behind on semiconductors and aviation, but it has established supply chains in these areas and is determined to catch up. A lot of the groundwork for China’s successes were laid before Xi took office. These buzzing ecosystems of technology production are made up of designers, engineers, and technicians who meet every day to solve problems. Their lives don’t necessarily depend on policy developments from either Beijing or Washington, DC.
It’s also about people. China has around a hundred million people working in manufacturing. The country’s population is declining, yes, but it’s important to keep in mind that only a thin slice of the workforce is engaged in technological production. Germany and Japan are mighty exporters with, respectively, eight million and ten million manufacturing workers. A country doesn’t need so many people to have a robust semiconductor industry: A few hundred thousand highly trained workers are enough. In 2025, China will graduate more than twice as many PhDs in STEM fields as the United States—and many in American universities are Chinese nationals likely to repatriate.
Making China technologically powerful has become a major priority for Xi’s third term. He talked about it at the start of his first term, when he remarked that China’s greatest historical problem was its lack of technology. In Xi’s telling, China was unable to keep up with modernity, as the Qing empire had rotted from within while besieged by “Western ships and their cannons.” Subsequently, his government announced Made in China 2025, a sweeping plan to dominate ten technological industries. In 2023, Beijing announced the creation of a new high-level body: the Central Science and Technology Commission. And the following year, Xi declared that the country must become a “science and technology superpower” by 2035.
“The competition for national strength,” goes one commentary from the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2024, “is essentially a contest of scientific and technological innovation, ultimately proving which political system is superior.” It is a strange sort of declaration, implying that countries should not be judged by whether they create better economic outcomes, generate greater aesthetic or intellectual flourishing, or produce some more general measure of well-being for the population. In the last Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union argued over broader measures of success. For a segment of elites in Xi’s China—echoing the beliefs of the Industrial Party—who can do better on science and technology determines all.
In a crucial way, the United States accelerated China’s progress on science and technology. In his first term, Donald Trump unleashed a trade war against Chinese exporters and a technology war against its leading companies. His administration designated Chinese tech leaders—Huawei, drone-maker DJI, chip leader SMIC—on opaque sanctions lists, which throttled their ability to access American technologies. A few were pushed to the brink of collapse. Concurrently, Trump’s Department of Justice subjected scientists (mostly of Chinese heritage) to the tender mercy of the US criminal justice system, usually for charges related to relatively low-level problems implicating research integrity. Joe Biden broadened technology controls, demanding that all advanced chips and chipmaking equipment be approved by the US government before they could be sold to China.
I spent years covering the twists and turns of these technology restrictions. The more it went on, the more I felt that the United States was committed to a strategy of destroying its scientific and industrial establishment—through prosecutions of scientists and cutting off the sales of chipmakers—in order to save it. Rather than realizing its own Sputnik moment, the United States triggered one in China.
China’s technology leaders have always bought American chips because they wanted to sell globally competitive products. They ignored Beijing’s beseeching to buy from domestic vendors for the simple reason that Chinese technologies were not good enough. But the Trump administration gave China’s tech leaders every reason to fear being cut off from American technologies. And so the US government fully aligned those Chinese firms that were previously reluctant to build up the domestic industrial base to Beijing’s self-sufficiency agenda. All the money and engineering talent that China’s most dynamic tech companies used to send to the United States were now staying at home.
Was it worthwhile to devalue the reliability of American companies, not just to Chinese firms but to companies around the world? So far, export restrictions haven’t dealt a decisive blow to Chinese tech companies, which have found ways to limp along without full access to American chips. Even Huawei, which suffered the most intense US restrictions, is still selling 5G equipment globally and smartphones at home. Sometimes I think that the United States’ tech competition with China—chaotic policymaking under Trump, porous implementation under Biden—has ended up in the worst of all worlds. These restrictions have scorched China’s most dynamic companies without killing them, which riles them up to break free of American restrictions.
Meanwhile, Beijing is eagerly funding technology development. As bank lending to real estate projects has collapsed, funding has surged toward manufacturers. Beijing partially engineered this scenario. Though China has lost wealthy and creative types, it has been gaining scientists. Since 2020, high-profile scientists of Chinese descent have left the United States, pulled as much by China’s generous offers of research funds as they were pushed by the Trump administration’s investigations of research impropriety. Fewer than 1,000 scientists of Chinese descent moved from the United States to China in 2010; more than 2,500 did in 2021. A wave of positive media in China has greeted the biologists or mathematicians that move from an elite American university to China. Xi probably doesn’t mind trading disgruntled youths for senior scientists.
Is it possible to do science in a tightening political environment? A common contention I hear is that China can’t innovate because it “doesn’t have free speech.”
There’s no question that Xi has tightened the country’s already limited space for free speech. Free thought is essential for the humanities and the social sciences. But I’m not so sure that it’s a necessary condition for the natural sciences, for very little in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and engineering is innately political. Plenty of autocratic systems in history have delivered startling technological advances.
German states, for example, have done just that. The nineteenth-century Prussian state combined autocracy with the invention of the modern research university. After Bismarck unified the German states under Prussian rule in Berlin, the country became the pioneer in chemicals—arguably the first science-based industry—as well as in electrical engineering. Nobel Prizes in the sciences continued to be awarded to Nazi Germany while it enlisted its scientists to make Wunderwaffen like the world’s first ballistic missiles and jet fighters for the war. The Soviet Union provides an even starker example. Its scientific establishment conducted groundbreaking research throughout Stalin’s Terror. The state had arrested a remarkable number of scientists, including the chief theoretician of the hydrogen bomb and the head of the Soviet space program. More than one scientist had barely staggered out of Stalin’s gulags before doing the work that would win him a Nobel Prize. The Soviets built the atomic bomb under the direction of Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s odious chief of police. Just as in Nazi Germany, the Soviets kept making scientific advancements during the period of the most intense tyranny.
Modern China is nowhere near as extreme as the police states run by Stalin or Hitler. How is it that science can coexist with autocracy? Mostly, I believe, because the precondition for science is that abundant funds are far more critical to science than free speech, and that is something dictators can deliver.
Perversely, repression might encourage scientists to throw themselves still further into their work rather than paying attention to the rest of the world falling apart around them. I don’t believe that autocracy is good for science, only that it doesn’t guarantee its destruction. China has gotten plenty far on industrial advances—solar power, electric vehicles, robotic arms—in an atmosphere of worsening political repression. Now Xi is shoveling money toward scientists. I’ve interviewed over two dozen scientists in China, most of whom were trained in the United States, who have told me that it’s easier to receive funding in Chinese universities than in American universities. Their money comes without many strings attached, whereas a grant application to the National Science Foundation demands fastidiousness on formatting, endless reporting requirements, and the threat of jail if they don’t make a proper disclosure.
I envision China becoming something like a more successful East Germany, a state that combines surveillance and political controls with strong outcomes in science and technology. The Communist Party will not relent on the political atmosphere; meanwhile, it will continue its pursuit of science and technology. Though East Germany was a leader within the Soviet bloc, it was still behind the West, but I expect China to be more successful. Chinese firms will produce high-quality products, perhaps lagging behind global leaders by only a few years and in only a few industries. They’ll make chips not powerful enough to fit into the latest iPhone but good enough for electric vehicles and drones, planes not as efficient as the latest from Airbus but good enough to fly between Bangkok and Shanghai.
My focus, for much of the past decade, has concerned China’s rejection of advanced technology with American characteristics. And though I would love for China to adopt greater legal protections for people, I’m not sure the technology path it has chosen has been unwise.
Throughout this book, I’ve avoided calling Xi’s regulatory storm a “tech crackdown.” While disciplining digital platforms and the real virtual economy with one hand, Beijing has with its other dispensed favor to harder technologies like semiconductors. Xi was trying to reorient technology companies to be less focused on virtual or financial innovation, and for the best and brightest from Tsinghua and Peking Universities to work in strategic industries instead.
Underlying Beijing’s actions against digital platforms is a suspicion that tremendously profitable digital companies are not producing value for the rest of society. Entrepreneurial dynamism in online education, social media, or fintech are producing various forms of social harm. The virtual economy, including cryptocurrencies and the metaverse, sucked up too much talent and money. Xi and the rest of the Politburo were discomfited that the cutting edge of the economy seemed to have been driven by the vagaries of investors rather than the interests of the state.
My sense, while I watched the crackdown unfold in China, was that Beijing was trying to avoid the economic structure of the modern United States. Over the past two decades, the major American growth stories have been in Silicon Valley on one coast and Wall Street on the other. Subsequently, both tech and finance have been blamed for many social ills. If there is an era of American innovation that attracts Beijing, it might be the Silicon Valley of the 1960s and 1970s. Chipmakers like Intel were hitting their stride, becoming, in part, major suppliers to the Pentagon and NASA. That was a period when tech companies manufactured stuff, employed big workforces, and minded the state’s national security needs.
So Beijing attempted economic surgery. China’s leadership wanted dynamism in science-based industries that can patch its strategic deficiencies. In particular, that meant advanced manufacturing industries like semiconductors or clean technologies. It meant that China needs to keep producing and “never deindustrialize.” Beijing understands social media sites, like Facebook or TikTok, primarily as freewheeling platforms of expression. They bring little gain in economic productivity while creating huge potential for political unrest. Meanwhile, the Chinese leadership looks more longingly at places like Germany, a country that hasn’t developed digital giants but is firmly grounded in manufacturing industries.
In the United States, physics and mathematics PhDs hardly have a chance to consider working in their field before a tech giant or hedge fund picks them up at the sidelines of a conference, flashes them with a humongous pay package, and folds these eager minds into their glamorous embrace. Senior government advisers have more or less stated that Beijing intends to block these temptations. Yao Yang, a dean at Peking University, has remarked with satisfaction that salaries have fallen in the financial industry after regulators imposed a salary cap of $400,000 on the financial sector. Its idea, Yao said, is “to reduce the attractiveness of finance and to increase the development of manufacturing.”
The strategy has backfired in a major way. Most notably, it has dampened the animal spirits among entrepreneurs after so many had their businesses crushed. And it’s also unlikely that running major technological industries like national security science projects will always produce winners. The Soviet Union, after all, ultimately failed to keep up with the technological frontier set by the West, even though it was doing great science. China has created successful commercial firms in a way that the Soviets never did, though they risk being engulfed by the state. In much the same way, the United States still has a certain degree of manufacturing excellence, represented by firms like Tesla. But that is an outlier. Though Tesla might lead the country toward manufacturing strength once more, it might also be engulfed by the diminishing levels of process knowledge that have dragged down the formerly mighty Boeing and Intel.
Though Chinese firms labor under political restrictions from Beijing and chip restrictions from Washington, DC, they have delivered breakthroughs. DeepSeek, made by a Hangzhou-based company, is one of a handful of frontier AI models, with costs that are a fraction of those demanded by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Chinese AI researchers haven’t been laggards. They publish a great number of papers on AI, and its companies have released models that score highly on technical benchmarks. Furthermore, the state is deploying AI, but more for the purposes of censorship, facial recognition, and other means of control.
China has advantages it can bring to bear in artificial intelligence. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that American companies are not so much constrained on computing power as they are on electrical power. AI data servers are so energy hungry that Microsoft has attempted to restart the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant, and Meta was about to build a data center (running also on nuclear power) until it was halted by the discovery of a rare species of bee near that site. Well, nothing thrills the engineering state like gigantic investments in energy production for industry. What China lacks in technological sophistication, it might make up for in electrical power.
There is also a risk that China misapplies AI. The Chinese system is sometimes overenthusiastic about new technologies or new theoretical ideas. In 1978, one of China’s top scientists went abroad to learn about an exciting science called cybernetics and took back home the seeds of an idea that bloomed into the one-child policy. Perhaps the lawyerly society will have the ideological resilience not to be seduced by artificial intelligence, while authoritarian countries wreck themselves by doing so. But it’s also possible that Western minds will be broken by AI. In the United States, every shift in mass media—from cable television in the 1990s, the internet in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s, and now AI—has increased discontent between the masses and the elites, as well as between the elites and each other. American society has become much messier than two decades ago, when people were bound by a consensual reality rather than spinning off into different worlds.
It’s not clear for which country AI will prove more destabilizing. Fortress China is being protected from the ravages of social media platforms. By putting strict limits on the internet and AI, Xi has built China into a security state able to police vast information flows. The hope from Beijing might be that Americans will be driven mad by the dangerous storms produced by the double whammy of social media plus artificial intelligence. Perhaps these things will magnify the internal divisions of Americans. As more Americans retreat into a digital phantasm, Xi will be shepherding Chinese through the physical world to make babies, make steel, and make semiconductors.
And AI shouldn’t distract us from broader American deficiencies. I do not think that outright war between the United States and China is certain to happen. But each side is closely studying the other’s military strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of conflict. If it does come to pass, it would be an apocalyptic scenario for the world. War might erupt in the Pacific or elsewhere. As relations between the United States and China become more hostile, the chances of conflict grow. The United States is facing a peer competitor that has four times its population, an economy with considerable dynamic potential, and a manufacturing sector that can substantially outproduce itself and its allies. If China and the United States ever come to blows, they would be entering a conflagration with different strengths. Which would you rather have: software or hardware?
The quantitative disparities between the United States and China are stark. In 2022, China had nearly 1,800 ships under construction, and the United States had 5. US support of Ukraine against Russian aggression also exposed the paltry state of its domestic munition capacity. In two days, Ukraine could fire as many shells as the United States makes in a month. At the very end of the Biden administration, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said bluntly that the United States will experience “exhaustion of munition stockpiles very rapidly” if it were ever to face the Chinese military.
China does not lack for munitions. In the case of an emergency, it will be able to scale up production of munitions, just as it has with personal protective equipment, while the United States stumbled on basic things. And I worry that the United States is counting far too much on AI to change the tide. Even if the United States achieves artificial general intelligence, it will need to be able to actually manufacture drones or munitions; algorithms alone will never win a battle. Though the United States has the most sophisticated fighter jets and submarines in the world, it makes precious few of them. The US defense industrial base does not often target efficiency when it distributes production to the jurisdictions of favored members of Congress.
In the modern world, many manufactured products can be refashioned for military purposes. The smartphones we carry around have sensors that would have been military grade a decade ago. The consumer drone is also dual use, which is why Ukrainians and Russians have tried to buy China’s DJI drones for the battlefield. That’s why industrial capacity should be understood, increasingly, as military capacity. All the drones, smartphones, and batteries that are overwhelmingly produced in China give it an advantage that the United States does not necessarily have.
China’s large and adaptive manufacturing base keeps growing. In 2024, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization forecast that China will have 45 percent of the world’s industrial capacity by 2030. The United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and all other high-income states combined add up to 38 percent of capacity. In a crisis, China has demonstrated a greater track record of expanding manufacturing production than the United States has, so it’s not clear whether wartime conditions would change this ratio. Meanwhile, US manufacturing capacity faces greater erosion as China’s manufacturers, boosted by subsidies, produce even if they’re missing profits. China’s industrial might is a strategic advantage that could overwhelm all the rich countries in the world.
I like to imagine how much better the world would be if both superpowers could adopt a few of the pathologies of the other. I don’t see much danger that Americans could wake up one day with a government that effectively steamrolls every opposition to building big projects, and I don’t expect Chinese will encounter a government at last willing to leave them alone. Rather, I hope that China learns to value pluralism while embracing substantive legal protections for individuals and the United States recovers the capability to build for its people.
I don’t want to get rid of lawyers. Rather, I want to help lift the engineers (and also their technocratically minded brethren, the economists) back up. Not to raise them onto a pedestal but to elevate them so that there are other voices in the mix. The United States could use fewer lawyers who devote their careers to litigating the life out of government agencies and more lawyers of the dealmaker bent who are interested in working out how to deliver better services. Law professor Nick Bagley concluded his seminal paper on proceduralism (which I referenced in the first chapter) with a polite, but deceptively powerful, proposition that I want to echo: Lawyers should consider whether they could achieve more by stepping out of the way.
It is harder to see how China could move away from engineers. The emperors practiced absolutism a millennium before any European monarchs whiffed the idea. China’s civil society has long been weak, with strong family clans, but not made up of the sorts of religious organizations and military aristocracy that produced political contestation in Europe. And ever since the introduction of the imperial examinations in the sixth century by the Sui dynasty, would-be intellectuals have mostly conformed to studying a curriculum set by the emperor. One reason that China lacks a liberal tradition—focused on protection of individual liberties—is that court intellectuals tended not to develop philosophies based on restraining the emperor or his bureaucracy.
China needs lawyers. Or, to be more precise, the ability for people to decline the state’s designs on their bodies, their speech, and their minds.
The country doesn’t lack regulations or statutes. Xi provides everything for his friends; for his enemies, he has the law. Since he made it a signature priority to impose “rule by law,” the country has drowned in laws and regulations. That doesn’t mean rule of law as the West might understand it. Xi has rejected the idea of constitutionalism, and the president of the Supreme People’s Court has denounced the idea of constitutional democracy as a “false Western ideal.” China lacks a real commitment to respecting individual rights. The state allows only limited scope for citizens to challenge government actions, while the Communist Party is off-limits from lawsuits. The judicial system doesn’t always publish the records of a case and regardless has plenty of discretion to make legal challenges go its way or go away.
How might change come? Perhaps through ordinary acts of resistance. China’s leaders have for millennia tried to impose greater controls on the people. And the people have developed their own strategies for dealing with this control. Though the state wants to see society as an engineering exercise, the reality of China—immediately apparent to those of us who have spent any time there—is that the country is messy. Daily life in China is far more disorderly than the images projected by state media, in which every village is immaculate and where everyone sits with a straight back as they listen to Xi’s pronouncements.
Neither is the Communist Party staffed by a far-planning technocracy, nor is it able to squeeze as hard as it wants to achieve national security. People find ways to adapt around the most onerous demands of the engineers. They wield weapons of the weak. When folks see a flurry of senseless rules from the government, they might react with foot dragging, petty noncompliance, feigned ignorance, and arguing back. The system for negotiability is one reason that people have been able to accommodate themselves to engineers.
It would be a better future if the Communist Party could learn some restraint and put a higher value on the individual. Spending time with young people who have rùn is a good reminder that the Politburo isn’t representative of the country. The Communist Party will never be convinced that Chinese kids blissed out of their minds on psychedelics represent a hidden asset for the country. What I see in them, as well as among other Chinese people who do their best to deal with the engineering state, is a steady effort to hold one’s own against overwhelming odds. It is a hope that the Communist Party might one day let its people flourish by leaving them alone.
Creative youths weren’t the first people from China to have rùn. Two decades ago, a pair of people in their mid-thirties emigrated from Yunnan. They weren’t nearly as hip as the Chiang Mai kids. But my parents left China for many of the same reasons: feeling disappointment in the country’s direction and willing to roll the dice on a better life abroad. They carried me, a seven-year-old child, with them on their way to Canada.
*I chose this number deliberately. Deng Xiaoping came up with a formulation that Mao Zedong was 70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong. I am sure that Xi would be the last person in the world who would say that he’s greater than Mao. Therefore I assign him a slightly lower score here.
Chapter 7 Learning to Love Engineers
In moving to the West, my parents made a wrenching personal decision based on what amounted to a guess about the future. It was an educated guess, grounded in part in deep family history that included a few troubling encounters with the state. But mostly it was about what lay ahead. Where did they and their young child (me, seven years old) have the best chance of living a good life? Which government, and which set of rules, was better for their well-being? Looking at a world they knew, run by engineers, and an alluring but mysterious one, run by lawyers (not that they knew that yet), they had to make a choice, a bet. All these years later, it’s not an open-and-shut case that they made the right call.
Both of my parents were born in Kunming, the capital of southwestern Yunnan province. Yunnan folks are reputed to be laid back, more eager to sit over tea and chat through the afternoon rather than drive themselves too hard. Not that there’s much to drive toward. The city was a backwater when my parents left and remains lackluster today. The government classifies Kunming as a third-tier city, which has the stagnant salaries and limp property values to prove it. When I think about my parents’ culture and their upbringing, I am surprised they made the decision to emigrate. We are a very Yunnan family. My mom, Rachel, and my dad, Frank, each have one parent with deep roots in Yunnan and one parent brought there by the war.
My dad’s father, my Yeye, was born into Yunnan’s most prominent merchant family. The Zhu Family Gardens was Yunnan’s largest residence, with gardens so splendid that it would have fit in among the charmed estates of Suzhou. Near the end of the Qing dynasty in the nineteenth century, the family patriarch oversaw a business focused on the mining of tin and copper, expanding (as successful merchants did at the time) into selling tea, distilling spirits, producing silk, and possibly partaking in the opium trade—although my relatives have been a bit vague when I ask them about this point.
第五章：零新冠疫情
Yeye was born in the Zhu Family Gardens a few years after the collapse of the Qing dynasty. There wasn’t much of a fortune left by the time he was born. The Zhu family lost its wealth after it kept siding with political losers: with the Qing before local warlords routed imperial forces, then with the Nationalists before their defeat by the Communists. The head of the Zhu family had already been executed for political disloyalty when my grandfather was born. So Yeye wound up in Kunming with his siblings, scattered and poor.
- 130居民可以无视中国法律： “中国外国租界”，维基百科，2025年5月21日。
- 131也充斥着鸦片馆： Frederic Wakeman，“休闲许可：中国国民党试图监管上海，1927-1949 年”，《亚洲研究杂志》 54，第 1 期（1995 年）：24。
- 135她在医院外流产了：克里斯蒂安·谢泼德，“中国封城西安发生悲惨事件，医院工作人员因对妇女的治疗而被解雇”，《华盛顿邮报》，2022 年 1 月 6 日更新。
- 1373 月 24 日的头条新闻：邢毅，“上海没有封城计划”，《中国日报》，2022 年 3 月 24 日更新。
- 137“封锁太重要”： “上海新增感染者持续高位，为何不能‘封城’？回应来了！” 【上海新冠感染人数持续上升，但这就是为什么不能封城】，人民网，2022年3月26日。
- 137上海市发布《关于做好全市新一轮核酸筛查工作的通知》，上海市卫生健康委员会，2022年3月28日。
- 137措辞非常温和：赵玉莎、陈青青、齐希佳，《上海进入部分“暂停”状态，承诺每日物资供应充足》，《环球时报》，2022年3月28日。
- 138一个狗吠般的声音会对他大喊： Aaron Mak，“中国使用无人机应对冠状病毒的所有侵入性方式”， Slate，2020 年 2 月 4 日。
- 138“无人机将试图起到劝阻作用”：曹安，“上海杨浦区部署无人机检测违反新冠肺炎防疫规定的行为，引发投诉”，《南华早报》，2022年8月15日。
- 138“压抑你灵魂对自由的渴望”：罗伯·施密茨，“当上海这栋大楼因新冠疫情封锁时，我的微信群聊炸开了锅”，美国国家公共广播电台，2022 年 4 月 30 日。
- 140司机举着自己的粪便瓶：罗春浩、严玉成，《千万货车司机困在疫情里》，中国数字时代，2022年4月11日。
- 141名人纷纷在网上抱怨：刘宪华，《6位香港名人如何度过上海封城：从刘嘉玲和黎姿在微博上晒出的新冠病毒检测照片，到李丞琳的乐观直播》，《南华早报》，2022年4月20日。
- 141该国顶级风险投资家之一： “上海被封锁的精英们也加入了抢购食品的行列”，彭博新闻，2022 年 4 月 8 日。
- 144CNN 制片人： Serenitie Wang，“上海惊喜：我如何在世界上最严格的 Covid 封锁中度过 70 天的隔离期”，CNN，2022 年 6 月 17 日。
- 144追杀柯基犬： Jessie Yeung，“一名新冠疫情工作人员在上海将一只狗殴打致死，此前该狗的主人检测呈阳性”，CNN，2022 年 4 月 8 日。
- 144一位女士告诉记者：谢一凡和齐丽艳，“上海严格的新冠防疫规定将儿童与父母分开”，《华尔街日报》，2022 年 4 月 3 日。
- 144将婴儿和幼儿与父母分开： Brenda Goh 和 Engen Tham，“上海在抗击病毒斗争中将 COVID-19 阳性儿童与父母分开”，路透社，2022 年 4 月 2 日。
- 145在网上引起强烈反响后：海伦·戴维森，“中国：社论称共产党员必须有三个孩子”，《卫报》，2021 年 12 月 9 日。
- 145被拒绝在她工作的医院接受治疗：娜塔莎·汗，“上海护士之死加剧了人们对中国新冠肺炎防控措施成本的怀疑”，《华尔街日报》，2022 年 3 月 25 日。
- 146与警察对峙： Mandy Zuo，“上海封城：一对新冠病毒检测呈阴性的夫妇被带走隔离后，居民担心新冠病毒检测出现假阳性”，《南华早报》，2022 年 4 月 11 日。
- 148官方媒体盛赞表演者： “ 1月21日，2020年湖北省春节团拜会文艺晚会在洪山礼堂圆满举办”【1月21日，2020年湖北省春节联欢晚会文化演出在洪山礼堂圆满举行】，网易新闻，2020年1月23日。
- 149个人故事的一句话快照： Alexander Boyd，“翻译：微博用户因武汉诗歌被判处六个月监禁”，《中国数字时代》，2021 年 2 月 24 日。
- 15020 世纪 90 年代，河南省饱受苦难：克里斯·巴克利 (Chris Buckley)，《揭露中国农村艾滋病疫情的高耀杰博士去世，享年 95 岁》，《纽约时报》，2023 年 12 月 10 日。
- 150高乔治吹嘘： “中国疾控中心主任高福：不应对中国疫苗失去信心”【中国疾病预防控制中心主任高乔治：我们不应该对中国疫苗失去信心】，北京青年报，2019年3月5日。
- 151人民日报宣称： “抗疫斗争展现中国制度优势”，人民日报，2020年9月17日。
- 153要使用上海大学的淋浴设施：张婉青，“在封城的上海，学生们适应了超现实的新常态”，第六声，2022 年 4 月 30 日。
- 153三万名游客被困： Alex Binley，“上海迪士尼：公园关闭，游客必须持有新冠病毒检测阴性证明才能离开”，BBC，2022 年 10 月 31 日。
- 154千人被关几天：《上海基层愤书抗疫三建议，呼吁反对官僚主义》，《上海基层愤怒书抗疫三建议，呼吁反对官僚主义》，《易报》，2022年4月2日。
- 156James C. Scott 著有： James C. Scott，《不被统治的艺术：东南亚高地无政府主义史》（耶鲁大学出版社，2009 年），第 8 页。
- 158分享次数最多的文章之一：魏昌浩，“‘紧急状态’与中国‘零新冠’政策的执行”，《全国人大观察家》，2022 年 8 月 25 日；童志伟，《关于上海新冠防疫两项措施的法律意见》，CND.org。
- 159乔治·阿甘本在 2020 年写道：乔治·阿甘本，《我们现在在哪里？流行病作为政治》（罗曼和利特菲尔德出版社，2021 年），第 8 页。
- 161把他们锁在摇晃的建筑物里：伊娃·窦，“中国四川地震引发对新冠疫情封锁的抗议”，《华盛顿邮报》 ，2022 年 9 月 6 日。
- 161习近平变得痴迷：康大可，“无视专家，中国突然实现新冠肺炎零感染，付出了生命的代价”，美联社，2023年3月24日。
- 162声明中带有讽刺意味： “中共中央政治局常务委员会召开会议习近平主持会议”，新华社，2022年5月5日。
- 162只广播经批准的消息： “禁止转发未经官方证实的和负能量的内容”【请勿转发未经官方证实的内容或者满足于负能量]，《中国数字时代》，2022年9月9日。
- 162重庆一名男子走红网络：克里斯·巴克利、亚历山德拉·史蒂文森和基思·布拉德舍尔，《从零新冠到无计划：中国疫情应对策略的U型转弯》，《纽约时报》，2022年12月19日，2022年12月21日更新。
- 166野村证券的经济学家估计：汤姆·汉考克，“野村证券称，中国常规新冠病毒检测将耗资 GDP 的 1.8%”，彭博新闻，2022 年 5 月 6 日。
- 166新华社发表评论文章：《中国真的没有为应对新一阶段新冠肺炎疫情做好准备吗？》新华社，2023年1月20日。
- 167到 2024 年，发达民主国家的每个执政党：约翰·伯恩-默多克，《“民主之年”教会了我们什么，6 张图表》，《金融时报》 ，2024 年 12 月 30 日。
- 168学术估计如下： Hong Xiao 等人，“中国结束新冠零感染政策后的超额全因死亡率”， JAMA Network Open 6，第 8 期（2023 年）。
My grandfather had just enough means to be able to get an education. There he met a woman who had also fallen from elite origins. My dad’s mother, Nainai, was born in Nanjing, then the country’s capital. Her father was one of several secretaries to Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist Party. Before the Japanese seized Nanjing, the secretary took my infant grandmother and retreated with the rest of Chiang’s government to Chongqing. Nainai once told me about one of her early memories, in which people frantically tried to shush her crying lest she attract the attention of Japanese bombers. From Chongqing she went to Kunming, the second capital of the wartime government.
Nainai met Yeye when they both were training as chemical engineers. In the 1960s, her Nationalist family connection disgraced her. The Communist Party sent her to labor in the countryside, and she was unable to see my dad or his brother for six years. When my dad was five, his brother fell sick from eating a poisonous mushroom (a common affliction among fungi-loving Yunnanese). He tried to send a letter to Nainai to alert her, but since he didn’t know how to write the character for “mushroom,” he drew one. She recounted how my dad’s note filled her with confusion and alarm: “Older brother fell sick from eating a (drawing of a mushroom).” Until the end of her life, Nainai cursed Mao for his crazy schemes to break up families.
My mom’s side of the family has rural origins. Her father, my Laoye, was born in the northern province of Henan. As a teen, he barely survived the great famine that struck the province in 1942; his two brothers did not. Laoye attended a school administered by successive regimes that wrested control of Henan: first Nationalist, then Japanese, then Nationalist again, until the Communist victory. He developed a great love for books. Since Laoye’s family had perished, he enlisted with the troops, and since he had some schooling and literacy, they selected him to become an officer. He joined the Second Field Army, whose commissar was Deng Xiaoping, dispatched to expel Nationalist troops from Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan.
In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, the army split into different factions, each proclaiming themselves to be more fervently devoted to Mao. My grandfather fell into the faction that got itself labeled “rightist” and therefore outside of political favor. The winning faction confined his unit to work at home to produce furniture. He had no idea how to do that but tackled the project with soldierly fortitude. After Mao’s death, Laoye saw action once more in his life, when China invaded Vietnam in 1979. Serving as a propaganda officer, he carried out a job—dropping leaflets on Vietnamese troops urging them not to resist—that in retrospect sounds laughable. Battle-hardened Vietnamese troops who repulsed the Americans only years earlier were not going to surrender to a leaflet.
My family says that I resemble this grandfather more than anyone else: a round face, wider eyes, and higher cheekbones. These features could also come from his wife, my Laolao, who is descended from deep Yunnan stock. Rather than being able to trace her heritage for a dozen generations through a prosperous merchant family, the family origins of my mom’s mother are cheerily insignificant. They’ve been black tea farmers in the south of Yunnan for generations. Several ethnic groups are prominent where my grandma is from. It’s a bit of a joke in the family—since I look slightly unusual—that I have Tibetan or Wa heritage through her.
Laolao grew up in a family with a slightly bigger plot of land than others. That enabled her to get an education and move to Kunming to become a kindergarten teacher. Life was good until the Communist Party designated her family a minor landlord, condemning her to a bad class background. So she too was sent away to labor in the fields, apart from her three daughters. Most of her family is still farming black tea in southern Yunnan. Every time Laolao’s relatives visited Kunming, mostly to visit the city’s hospital, they brought along some tea and a local chicken, which she stewed into a wonderful, golden broth.
Soldier, landlord, traitor, capitalist. Each of my grandparents suffered through Mao’s political convulsions. Former wealth and a Nationalist background condemned my dad’s side of the family. But the military and rural family history on my mom’s side didn’t produce political favor either. Mao’s China was a churning cauldron, in which people’s positions bobbed up and drifted down by design: Mao sought continuous revolution. When I spoke to my grandparents about their experiences, only my Nainai was still bitter. The others chuckled about the futility of their lives in the Cultural Revolution, laughing off the times they were separated from my mom and dad. They told me they didn’t suffer especially badly. That’s true. None of them starved to death or faced the ritualized beatings that destroyed other families.
While their parents were sent away to the countryside, my mom and dad mostly enjoyed themselves. They remember the Cultural Revolution as a good time when they skipped school and did their part to advance communism by chanting slogans and beating drums. My mom and dad were lucky. By virtue of being urban residents and good students, both were later able to attend university. Both were born in the golden era of 1959. They were part of the generation of people going to universities and starting businesses. After high school, my dad went to Guangzhou to study computer science, and my mom studied thermal engineering in Kunming.
By the time they were in college, Deng Xiaoping had started to dismantle the planned economy. My mom began freshman year with four ration coupons for meat per month. She was careful not to use them all up in the first week so that she could have red-braised pork later in the month too. The ration coupon system had mostly disappeared by senior year, and she was able to eat meat when she felt like it.
But socialism didn’t dissipate at once. When my parents graduated from college in the mid-1980s, they were caught up in a Deng program that was a throwback to Mao’s agenda: Both were part of a teaching corps sent into a small city to be teachers to middle school students. The state dispatched the two of them to the Yunnan city of Dali—which also happens to be where Silvia and I fled in 2022 to escape the Covid lockdowns. It’s hard to imagine a better place to be dispatched. They became a couple in the teaching corps numbering three dozen youths. When my parents married, their fellow teachers made up most of the guests. Nobody had much money at that time. The groom and bride treated their wedding guests to dinner and handed each guest a piece of milk candy afterward.
Once they completed their teaching service, my parents returned to Kunming. The state assigned my dad to teach computer programming at the local university. At that time, an undergraduate degree in computing from Guangzhou was sufficient qualification to be a lecturer in Kunming. And the state assigned my mom to work at a coal plant. The job was filthy. Since my mom loved, as her dad did, to read and write, she found herself editing the internal news bulletin at the plant.
My mom was determined to leave the coal plant and do something in journalism. She grew up speaking standard Mandarin, amid army officers who came from all over the country, rather than the local Yunnan dialect. When she applied for a transfer to the news bureau, the provincial broadcaster noticed her clear and resonant Mandarin and hired her to report on the culture and health beat. Eventually, the bureau promoted her to be a radio news anchor and, occasionally, a TV anchor. Whenever she sees me on TV or hears me on a podcast, she comments on how I sound before she tells me her thoughts on anything I’ve said. The voice is best, she reminds me, if my speech starts from my tummy, while I should project the sound as if it were emerging from my forehead. (That’s a tip for all the people hosting podcasts today.)
My parents emigrated after a spell of gloom in China during the 1990s. Yunnan’s economic outlook was dim then. The political and economic optimism that people felt over the past decade collapsed with Deng’s order to violently suppress student protesters, which then triggered international sanctions. My parents—a few years older than the protesters—felt crushed as they watched the army take control of Beijing. There was plenty of doubt around the country that Deng would succeed in his reform and opening policy. Countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia were beckoning Chinese to immigrate. It wasn’t easy for a couple in their mid-thirties with a small child to move. Their most-prized possessions were the stacks of books piled in our small apartment, few of which they would be able to carry. But when the Canadian government declared them to be high-skilled immigrants and gave them work visas, they decided to depart.
In February 2000, we found ourselves in the suburbs of Toronto. The timing wasn’t great. It was my first time realizing that snowfall could be measured in feet and that it can sit for months and turn into increasingly foul ice. Worse, the dotcom bubble had just burst. My dad’s programming skills became at once unmarketable. My mom fell from reading the news in Yunnan to taking on odd jobs in Canada, including as a janitor, garment worker, and massage therapist. We moved to Ottawa shortly thereafter so that my dad could study for a master’s degree in computer science. I sometimes got up to no good while my dad studied and my mom worked, but I didn’t believe them when they threatened to send me to the army. To my surprise, they followed through. To their surprise, I enjoyed being a Royal Canadian Army Cadet. Twice a week after high school, I would go to the drill hall near Parliament Hill to practice map reading, bivouac, and occasionally marksmanship. The person most pleased about all this was my Laoye, happy that I chose the army like he did.
My parents were always stressed about money while I grew up. I was able to do most of the stuff that other kids did, but every so often, I received a brutal reminder of how little money we had. I didn’t go to birthday parties because we couldn’t afford to buy a gift. My parents brought me to a facility one winter to pick up, to my delight, a bag of toys for Christmas. The gladness soured when other kids told me, not with gentleness, that I must have been poor to qualify for these toys. We never had boots sufficient for trudging around in the awful Ottawa winters. When we ate out, it was at Subway, which charged five dollars for a footlong sub. Now, I feel a slight revulsion when I catch the distinctive whiff of the Subway breads.
When my dad found a job as a software developer in Pennsylvania, we packed up our life in Canada and moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia. Our timing again was poor: Three months after we left Canada, the US stock market began to convulse in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Thankfully, my dad held on to his job. And I went to high school in Bucks County, which is the sort of place that people describe as bucolic. While I was in high school, my dad told me one day that he had no money to send me to college. I didn’t doubt him: The US immigration system allowed only him, not my mom, to work at that time. I went to study at the University of Rochester, one of the few places that gave financial aid to Canadian citizens, offering me nearly a full ride. As soon as I began college, I started working to cover my expenses.
Every so often, I wonder about the counterfactual of what would have happened if my parents never departed from Yunnan. They think about it too.
My mom and dad sometimes feel regret. They emigrated just as China’s economic boom began in earnest. The country had joined the World Trade Organization, and Deng’s reforms really did release the pent-up entrepreneurial energy of the country. If my parents had stayed in Kunming, they would have been allocated housing units by the state. These homes didn’t enjoy the precipitous rise in value seen in Shanghai or Shenzhen, but it would have been a tidy sum of money. They would have been near their parents, their siblings, and their friends. And they could have had better careers rather than restarting their lives in a very foreign country.
When my parents wonder what life would have been like if they stayed, they can just take a look at how the rest of their classmates are doing. In China, schoolmates are lifelong friends. Past a certain age, typical socializing takes place inside a banquet room with twenty or so of your classmates, getting drunk and reminiscing. Looking around the banquet table would give them a sense of what they’ve missed.
A few of their classmates caught the boom, taking advantage of China’s two great sources of wealth creation: owning property (or participating in the great wave of construction) or owning a factory (and participating in the great wave of exports). Since my dad went to college in Guangzhou, he knew a number of businesspeople who made their wealth selling furniture or some other consumer goods. They aren’t billionaires. But they have been able to buy a home—and sometimes an investment visa—overseas, drive a German-made car, and take leisurely holidays abroad when it suits them.
My parents have no entrepreneurial instincts. So they would have probably been more like the majority of their classmates who earned their living by drawing a salary. They wouldn’t earn so much by American standards—$2,000 a month would be considered good—but they would have wealth from owning perhaps two or three homes around Kunming. Liquidating one of them would be enough to send their child abroad for education: the United States if the property were central, Australia or Canada if it were located in the outskirts. A few of these college classmates might be considered lower middle class. Perhaps they had a bad run in business, maybe they pissed off their boss—who decided not to allocate them an apartment—and all they had was their salary.
“Of course, I wish we never left,” my mom sometimes said to my dad and me. Her friends at the provincial broadcaster have enjoyed nice careers in radio or TV, retiring at the state-mandated age of fifty-five with a pension. My mom might be hanging out with her sister, a now-retired nurse, who spends her mornings doing tai chi exercises in the park and her evenings with a singing troupe. She would be caring for her elderly father while being driven crazy by her mom. My parents would have the freedom to try out new restaurants and to spend their copious leisure time with family and college friends.
My dad is more circumspect. “Most of our classmates would trade places with us, you know,” he counters. Yes, my mom knows.
It took them a long while to make life work in the West. But they achieved a middle-class footing about twenty years after emigrating. My dad now works in the IT department for an insurance company. And my mom spends her time at home, glad to be free of laborious jobs. Their house in Pennsylvania is filled once more with books, like it was in Yunnan. On weekends they walk the Pennypack Trail or visit parks like the Delaware Water Gap. Since I worried about leaving them alone as an only child, I brought home a dog while I was in college, which gave them joy for years. Going to Costco is a weekend ritual for them like it is for many immigrant families. They’ve even taken up pickleball. After they naturalized as citizens, both of them cast votes in the 2024 presidential election.
The biggest beneficiary of my parents’ emigration is me. I have no idea what I would be like if I had grown up in Kunming rather than Ottawa. My parents tell me that the children of their classmates have mostly not found jobs that give them much meaning, not even the talented folks who made it to Beijing or Shanghai. My three cousins, who are in their twenties, all live at home with my aunts and uncles, because they don’t want to spend their meager paychecks on rent. If my parents never emigrated, they still might have been able to send me to an American university. In fact, they would probably have been able to afford it more easily. But I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do the sort of work I’m proud of, like writing this book.
It is because I have benefited from their move that I feel somewhat embarrassed. Guilty, even. My parents are materially impoverished relative to most of their friends. In many ways, they’re more spiritually impoverished too. They haven’t made many friends in suburban Philadelphia. Going anywhere from their housing development requires driving. To reach an Asian grocery store or a decent Sichuan restaurant, they spend two hours on highways driving to and from Princeton, New Jersey. I tell them that it is mostly their fault that they don’t have much of a community. They haven’t really made an effort. But they lack the context for being more engaged in this American suburban setting where it’s difficult to get to know others.
So why do their classmates envy my parents? Because they live a pleasant life without having to deal with the problems that attend the lives of even well-off Chinese citizens. The Chinese middle class is precariously exposed to changes in Beijing’s mood. Those in business have to deal with incredible stress, facing down threats from competitors or the local government. They have a gnawing sense that their lives are being shortened by the air they breathe or food they eat. And they feel deep uncertainties about their property values, the future of economic growth, or whether Beijing will visit some sort of disaster upon them or their companies. Life in China is deeply textured and all-embracing. But the intensity of family and social demands can smother, and the embrace can come unbidden, firmly and unavoidably, from the state. For many Chinese, a life in the American suburbs is worthwhile, even if their relationship with the community feels gossamer thin. Families in China still wonder whether they can establish a better life abroad and ask the same questions that my parents asked before they emigrated. Generations of Chinese people have prospered in the United States, in part, I’m sure, because their cultures are so alike. Millions of people look across the ocean and envision their futures, weighing the drawbacks and benefits, the similarities and the differences, asking themselves, Would it be better there?
My parents have a resigned contentedness about their lives. I have, however, a wish. For their benefit, I hope that they move to my favorite neighborhood in New York City: Sunset Park.
Walk south of the wealthy Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope—where brownstone homes retail for around $4 million—and you’ll reach Sunset Park. Its homes are not so handsome as those brownstones. Until the 1960s, Sunset Park was populated with Italian, Norwegian, and Finnish immigrants, who worked in the maritime trades on the nearby waterfront. Now the neighborhood is dominated by newer immigrants. Townhomes occupy the streets and commerce lines its avenues, where doctors and real estate agents advertise themselves in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Latino businesses line Fifth Avenue, while Chinese stores make up Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth. Chicharrón is on display on the western avenues, while roast duck and poached chicken hang on Cantonese rotisseries on the eastern ones. Papaya and plantain are sold on the west side, and durian and melons on the east. Many of the Chinese stores, annoyingly, accept only cash, but their offerings are worth a trip to the ATM. A few of the grocers offer mitten crabs with bright orange roe in the fall, just like you can find in Shanghai.
At the north is Sunset Park itself, whose name graces the rest of the neighborhood, which offers excellent views of Manhattan and New York Harbor. Its most prominent feature is the Sunset Play Center. This facility has one of the eleven swimming pools that Parks Commissioner Robert Moses opened in 1936, featuring his typically bold designs. The bathhouse is a brick building in art deco style, with a lobby made of ceramic tile and bluestone that rises into a rotunda. Around the pool one might find tai chi practitioners doing their routines. At all hours, teens play while families stroll through.
Chinese would recognize something in Robert Moses. He was an American urban planner who built at breakneck speed. Moses held a dozen titles—a few forbiddingly boring (like parks commissioner) and a few that were considerably more tantalizing (chairman of the New York City planning commission and city construction coordinator). He bulldozed urban neighborhoods to make way for great bridges and highways, vast parks upstate, and a giant dam producing power from Niagara Falls, as well as urban amenities that the city desperately craved, like the swimming pool at Sunset Play Center.
My parents haven’t responded to my entreaties to help them move to Sunset Park. I recognize that they took a great risk in their lives—moving abroad with a little one in tow—and no longer have the appetite for another big change. But I wish they could have ended up in a more vibrant place than suburban Philly. They shouldn’t have to choose between a typical life in China, where politics can overturn lives at any moment, and a typical life in the United States, where the bulk of people inhabit suburban lifestyles that feel kind of dreary.
No, not everyone has to live in the suburbs. But Americans do often have to choose between poorly governed cities or car-dependent suburbia. I wish that there were more spaces like Sunset Park: a relatively affordable neighborhood in a city connected by mass transit that enables people of different cultures to mix. For all of New York City’s flaws, it remains one of the few truly urban places in the United States, dense, walkable, with some degree of economic integration. But rather than continue to improve and modernize such places, as Robert Moses tried to do, we have left them in a weird, disconnected state while funneling the country’s abundant talent into creating new virtual worlds. Is that the trade Americans want?
By the time my parents and I immigrated to the United States in the 2000s, Moses had long departed the scene. He was not merely dead; he was discredited. The imperative that drove Moses—improving society through large-scale, government-led projects—had gone to the grave with him. My parents don’t know who Robert Moses is.
New Yorkers used to celebrate Moses. Then in 1974, Robert Caro published a biography of him titled The Power Broker, immortalizing Moses for his big projects and his equally big lapses in judgment. To call this biography monumental would be an understatement: Caro poured painstaking research and literary power into each of its 1,300 pages. Not coincidentally, The Power Broker was also one of the books that played a part in the consolidation of the lawyerly society. On par with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, it taught Americans to fear and loathe engineers.
Robert Moses, let it be said, was neither a lawyer nor an engineer. But as New York’s master builder, he was both—and more. The Power Broker can be understood by several lists: the list of Moses’s official titles; the list of his construction projects, which included bridges, expressways, and New York landmarks; and the list of his mistakes, flaws, and prejudices, which has made his name an oath against physical change. Moses, as Caro demonstrated, was an elitist who bulldozed poor neighborhoods in the service of the middle class. He was arrogant, unwilling to involve anyone else in the interpretation of the public interest, especially not members of the public. And he connived against anyone—poor or powerful—who dared oppose his plans. Though he burned with zeal, he was also burdened with racism and a penchant for petty vengeance.
When it was first published, the book seemed prescient. The Power Broker carried a subtitle fit for its time: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York was legendary for being awful through the 1970s, facing urban unrest and the threat of bankruptcy. In one of Caro’s most compelling chapters, Sunset Park is described as an irredeemable slum. Moses had barely taken a glance at the neighborhood before he thrust an elevated expressway above its busiest commercial street. The expressway, paraphrasing Caro’s vivid imagery, tore the heart out of the neighborhood by driving Finnish eateries and Norwegian shops away for the convenience of trucks. Commerce left when the expressway came, leaving a community to crumble.
Stroll around Sunset Park’s restaurants that peddle empanadas and noodles today, and its residents would be bewildered to learn that their neighborhood had had its heart torn out. The expressway Moses built is still there. Working-class immigrants are also still there, only now the locals speak Spanish, Cantonese, or Mandarin. The Sunset Play Center that Moses built for the neighborhood stands also, enjoyed by a new generation of families. Rather than fatally collapsing after losing its heart, Sunset Park has endured. It has endured because the neighborhood is bigger than a single construction project. And it has endured because migrants are still seeking a better life in the United States. I would be delighted to settle my parents in Sunset Park. It would bring them closer to the good parts of China that they no longer have access to: a walkable neighborhood where they could find foods they love, a great park where they could practice tai chi or play pickleball, and the option to take the subway around New York City to visit bookstores and cultural events.
The Power Broker has become a dated book. New York may be flawed, but it hasn’t fallen. The city walked itself back from the precipice in a way that industrial cities like Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland have not. These cities have lost two-thirds of their population since the 1950s, while New York has grown by attracting not only the working class but also the wealthy.
Like many builders, Moses wielded prejudices and made extravagant mistakes. His reign ended at the right moment: Critics like Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford called time on his relentless construction projects before he obliterated Lower Manhattan with yet another highway project. But his legacy of physical dynamism has also propelled New York into the global city it is today. Moses thought more deeply about how to attract families into the city than his critics give him credit for. The cultural centers he built have lent their gleam to a city that continues to attract creatives, too.
第六章：堡垒中国
What New York has lost since the 1960s are updates to its physical environment. The city is still relying on the infrastructure that came to a stop when the reign of Moses ended, which makes me think that there’s not much to be gained in stomping on Moses’s name still further. New York, and the United States writ large, cannot survive indefinitely on the infrastructure built nearly a century ago. There are always trade-offs and compromises inherent to building large-scale public works, and instead of vilifying the people from our past who made tough choices, we must confront these tough choices ourselves.
- 175上海的外国人口正在减少：刘嘉耀、袁高、王子辰，“中国外国人口急剧下降需要认真对待”，北京学，2023年6月11日。
- 17614,000 名百万富翁从中国移民：詹姆斯·金格，《中国超级富豪正考虑离开》，《金融时报》，2024 年 6 月 21 日。
- 176新购房者数量激增：利亚姆·狄龙和辛迪·张，“这个橙县城市拥有全国最火热的房地产市场”，《洛杉矶时报》，2024 年 8 月 16 日。
- 176中国移民数量翻了一番：加拿大2019年发放了2065份投资移民永久居留签证，2023年将达到4020份。数据来源：加拿大移民、难民和公民部（IRCC），“加拿大：按国籍和移民类别划分的永久居民”，开放政府门户网站，最后更新日期为2024年5月18日。美国2019财年发放了3984份投资移民签证，2024财年将达到7464份。数据来源：美国投资协会（IIUSA），“EB-5签证数据仪表盘”，最后更新日期为2024年12月26日。
- 179习近平问组：杜尚泽、李建光，《微观察·习近平总书记在企业和专家座谈‘看准了就坚定不移抓’》【习近平总书记在企业专家座谈会上的微观观察：“既定，坚定不移”】求真务实，人民日报，2024年5月28日。
- 179评论被删之前：“【网络民议】主因是什么？主因就是你啊主席！”【网络舆论：主要原因是什么？主要原因是董事长您！]，中国数字时代，2024年5月29日。
- 180鲁随后写了一封如此自卑的信：李天吉，《鲁炜忏悔书在曝光：妻子对我完全绝望》，新浪新闻，北京青年，2018年11月15日。
- 180一位字节跳动前高管公开指控： Thomas Fuller 和 Sapna Maheshwari，“字节跳动前高管指控公司‘无法无天’”，《纽约时报》 ，2023 年 5 月 12 日。
- 181时任CEO的张一鸣写道： David Bandurski，“‘新时代’的科技耻辱”，中国传媒项目，2018年4月11日。
- 181就连教育部也参与其中： “中国全面改革，禁止营利性学校辅导”，彭博新闻社，2021 年 7 月 24 日，2021 年 7 月 25 日更新。
- 181市值缩水 90%： Sophie Yu 和 Brenda Goh，“创始人称，新东方在中国教育改革后裁员 6 万名员工”，路透社，2022 年 1 月 10 日。
- 182正如滴滴在收到罚款后所写：保罗·莫祖尔和刘约翰，“中国对滴滴处以 12 亿美元的罚款，科技行业压力持续存在”，《纽约时报》，2022 年 7 月 21 日。
- 184他公布了一个新的领导团队：吴国光，“从航空航天工程师到共产党领导人：中国中共二十大上军工技术官僚的崛起”，亚洲协会政策研究所，华盛顿特区，2023 年 2 月 8 日。
- 1842018年，习近平表扬了教师：马驰，《习近平：尊重教师的典范》，《中国日报》 ，2021年9月10日。
- 185“从摇篮里抓起小孩子”：张长江，《革命传统教育要从娃娃抓起》，《求是》，人民日报，2021年6月25日。
- 185“进入心智”: “学纪，知纪，明纪，守纪” [学习纪律，了解纪律，理解纪律，遵守纪律]，《寻求真理》，2024年9月。
- 185“零距离服务”：北京市公安局2023年11月27日发布的《“树立最高标准，在北京打造‘凤桥体验’：北京市公安局创建‘凤桥式派出所’工作总结》报告。
- 185“我们必须做好最坏的打算”：《习近平敦促加快推进国家安全体系、能力现代化》，新华社，2023年5月30日。
- 186因商业纠纷或毒品指控：杰克·沃德森和克里斯·卡尔，《中国出境禁令和人质劫持事件的兴起》，麻省理工学院斯隆管理评论，2023 年 11 月 15 日。
- 186是这个数字的十倍：约翰·鲁维奇，“为什么选择去中国留学的美国学生人数仍然很低”，NPR，2024 年 6 月 13 日。
- 188在疫情高峰期： “习近平寻求中国‘可爱’形象，表明外交策略正在重新思考”，彭博新闻社，2021 年 6 月 1 日，2021 年 6 月 2 日更新。
- 190喜剧演员李昊石：范旺，“中国因喜剧团体开关于军队的玩笑罚款 200 万美元”，BBC，2023 年 5 月 17 日。
- 190他们的演出被取消了：李丽珍和蒋维克，“这不是玩笑：中国以‘不可抗力’为由取消喜剧演出”，《华盛顿邮报》 ，2023 年 5 月 25 日。
- 191他们大肆挥霍：凌玲薇，“中国收紧‘一带一路’计划，耗资1万亿美元之后”，《华尔街日报》，2022年9月26日。
- 191根据德勤的说法：德勤，《2021 年非洲建筑趋势》，2021 年 4 月 5 日。
- 192中国建筑商超支十亿美元： Neta Cynara Anggina，“印度尼西亚：高速铁路的高昂成本”，《译者》，洛伊研究所，2023 年 11 月 30 日。
- 192有两张照片流传开来：埃里克·奥兰德，“出席中国‘一带一路’论坛的领导人数量稳步下降”，中国全球南方协会，2023年10月18日。
- 192世界银行在 2024 年发现： Lukas Franz 等人，“中国‘一带一路’的财务回报”，世界银行，2024 年 7 月 9 日发展经济学年会。
- 192发展中国家对中国的看法更为积极：劳拉·西尔弗、克里斯汀·黄和劳拉·克兰西，“24 国调查显示，中国的外交政策方法普遍受到负面评价”，皮尤研究中心，2023 年 7 月 27 日。
- 193更加平衡的贸易关系： Jason Douglas、Jon Emont 和 Samantha Pearson，“中国大量涌入的廉价商品也激怒了其盟友”，《华尔街日报》，2024 年 12 月 3 日。
- 193燃煤发电能力是原来的二十倍： Molly Lempriere，“报告称，中国将占 2023 年新增燃煤电装机容量的 95%”，Carbon Brief，2024 年 4 月 11 日。
- 194中国正在拆除高尔夫球场： “习近平的养活中国运动正在将荒地变成农场”，彭博新闻社，2024年7月11日。
- 194低收入美国人的粮食不安全状况急剧恶化： Julia A. Wolfson 和 Cindy W. Leung，“粮食不安全与 COVID：美国成年人早期影响的差异”，《营养素》 12，第 6 期（2020 年）：1648。
- 196数十万训练有素的工人：半导体行业协会，《逐步缩小：评估和解决美国半导体行业面临的劳动力市场缺口》，2023 年 7 月。
- 1962025 年，中国将迎来博士毕业生人数的增长： Remco Zwetsloot，“中国 STEM 博士增长速度快于美国”，乔治城大学安全与新兴技术中心，2021 年 8 月。
- 196习近平讲：习近平，《习近平关于科技创新重要论述摘编》，市科技系统学习贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想领导小组办公室，2023年4月。
- 196《国力之争》：中共科技部领导小组，《深化科技体制改革为中式现代化提供强大科技支撑》，《深化科技体制改革，为中国现代化提供强大科技支撑》，求是，2024年9月16日。
- 198不到 1000 名华裔科学家：余谢等，“夹在交火中：美籍华裔科学家的担忧”，《美国国家科学院院刊》 120，第 27 期（2023 年 6 月 27 日）。
- 202北京大学院长姚洋：李晓丹，《姚洋：金融业降薪不是惩罚性的，而是降低金融业吸引力，转向发展制造业》【姚洋：金融业降薪不是惩罚性的，是降低金融业吸引力，转而发展制造业】，新浪财经，经济观察报，2024年6月18日。
- 203Meta 即将建造一个数据中心： Hannah Murphy 和 Cristina Criddle，“Meta 的核动力人工智能数据中心计划因稀有蜜蜂而受挫”，《金融时报》，2024 年 11 月 4 日。
- 204数量上的差异：约翰·弗里特利，《全球背景下的美国商业造船业》，国会研究服务处，2023 年 11 月 15 日。
- 204两天之内，乌克兰可能发射的炮弹数量就达到七千枚。约翰·伊斯梅，《五角大楼开设弹药厂以确保向乌克兰持续供应武器》，《纽约时报》，2024年5月29日。美国平均每月生产14400枚炮弹。罗克萨娜·蒂龙和比利·豪斯，《美国的战争机器无法快速制造足够的基本火炮》，彭博新闻社，2024年6月7日。
- 204杰克·沙利文说： “国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文谈加强美国国防工业基础”，战略与国际研究中心，2024 年 12 月 4 日。
- 206Nick Bagley 在他的开创性论文中总结道： Bagley，“程序迷恋”。
- 207习近平拒绝了这一想法：露西·霍恩比，《中国最高法官谴责司法独立》，《金融时报》，2017 年 1 月 17 日。
The United States has been weakened not only by a procedure-obsessed left—which has become so determined to avoid the errors of Moses that few big works are built at all—but also a thoughtlessly destructive right. I bring up Moses to suggest that the American left needs to rouse itself to deal with the problems of the present day rather than the problems of the previous midcentury.
The American right, I hope, can remember that it is possible to build wonders using the government. In 2025, the tech right celebrates the achievements of Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seeks to shred the federal government. No one can dispute that the US government is capable of astonishing inefficiency, but it used to be able to deliver the technologically astonishing too. If the left can reckon with Robert Moses, the right should reckon with Admiral Hyman Rickover—an engineer who improved national security through a large-scale, government-led project.
Better known as the father of the nuclear navy, Rickover launched the USS Nautilus in 1954. It was the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, able to travel underwater for weeks (rather than the diesel-powered crafts that could stay underwater for hours), which represented a decisive advantage against the Soviets when it was first unveiled. He was a perfectionist engineer who had the patience to work for decades within the government to see his vision through. What Rickover delivered is a fleet of submarines that remains the pride of the US Navy today. During World War II, industrialists went into government to scale up aircraft and naval production. The US government concentrated resources to accomplish great technological tasks like the Manhattan Project, which produced the bomb, and Apollo Program, which sent humanity to the moon. These kinds of massive technological feats could only be accomplished through the government.
I think about Robert Moses and Hyman Rickover not because they were gentle souls. Each had an unseemly lust for power. Both men were idealists with sharp elbows. Both men, as it happens, were also Jewish, experiencing prejudice in institutions meant to be genteel: Yale University for Moses and the US Navy for Rickover. Both were also devoted public servants who spent their entire lives building great works for government pay. Rickover and Moses achieved something we no longer see among public officials. They delivered projects on time and under budget, year after year, while avoiding corruption charges.
There are still plenty of people with tremendous vision and drive in the modern era. Only they are, like Elon Musk, more likely to found tech companies or hedge funds than to work for the public interest. Or departments like DOGE. The Department of Government Efficiency has brought contempt for government, lopping off core institutions and services. Are billionaires like Musk somehow more accountable than America’s prior generation of builders? I submit that they are only more obnoxious. The problem with the American right is not its desire to make the government more efficient. Their problem is that they diagnose the causes of inefficiency as a lazy workforce rather than the mountains of procedure that civil servants labor under. DOGE would be more effective if it targeted reductions in process rather than personnel.
The American right, I hope, can remember that the government is capable of building mighty works too. If ambitious people are mostly working in consumer internet companies, then there’s little wonder at the disappointment embedded in Peter Thiel’s quip: “We wanted flying car, instead we got 140 characters.” Shed a tear for the American states: wounded by the ostentatiously destructive tendencies of the right after it has been strangled and dragged down by the left.
The ultimate contest between China and the United States will not be decided by which country has the biggest factory or the highest corporate valuation. This contest will be won by the country that works best for the people living in it. The United States has deep and enduring advantages over China. But the engineering state has a powerful card to play: It can harness physical dynamism. China has greater manufacturing capabilities, more sophisticated physical infrastructure, a more robust defense industrial base, and more abundant housing. The United States can prove itself the stronger country over the next century if it can hold on to pluralism while building more.
Right now, it is failing. It won’t be able to respond to climate change, drive better economic outcomes, or deliver broader measures of social equality if the physical world remains underdeveloped. American governance is stronger if it can demonstrate that it has a political system capable of delivering essential services to its people, including safe public streets, functioning mass transit, and plentiful housing. For various American ideals to be fully realized, the country will need to recover its ethos of building, which I believe will solve most of its economic problems and many of its political problems too.
The United States will be stronger if it can manufacture. If it does not recover manufacturing capacity, the country will continue to be forcibly deindustrialized by China. US global power will be reduced if people around the world find it more attractive to drive Chinese cars, deploy Chinese robots, and fly Chinese planes. The world is more dangerous if Beijing believes that the United States has insufficient ships and munitions to respond to an aggressive act against Taiwan or in the South China Sea. If the two superpowers fight in East Asia, it’s not at all clear that the United States will win. America has to build to stave off being overrun commercially or militarily by China.
The United States will be stronger if it builds more homes. American progressives have a slogan that every billionaire is a policy failure. Since common folks are more on my mind, I propose an amendment: Every rise in housing prices is a policy failure. Prosperous places with substantial job creation—especially New York, San Francisco, and Boston—have perversely done the most to block new housing. Overall, half of American renters are considered cost-burdened (meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their pretax income on rent), and many people who would like to buy a first home cannot afford one. The lack of building new homes has locked people out of cities with good jobs. It is increasing segregation by class and race.
And the United States will be stronger if it can provide better infrastructure. Though New York has mass transit, most of it was built a century ago, such that entering a subway station in Manhattan feels too often like descending into a rotting pit, where one stands amid trash and worrisome leaks, until a deafening metallic screech announces the train. It’s not that the city doesn’t spend enough on these problems: New York has the honor of hosting five of the six most expensive transit projects in the world. It costs five times as much to build a kilometer of subway in New York City as it does in Paris. If it only cost twice as much, it might be a national tragedy; since it costs five times as much, it is only a statistic. There’s no reason that much older European cities should be able to build more cheaply than New York. And the people in charge don’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
To the Biden administration’s credit, it made a serious attempt to conduct industrial policy and build up US infrastructure. But the pace of building has been terribly slow. In 2021, Congress allocated $42 billion to expand broadband services to rural communities in a plan known as Internet for All. Four years later, not a single home has been connected to this network. Two years after Congress allocated $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations across the United States, just seven have become operational. The leisurely pace of construction was a political failure for the Democrats: After winning the 2024 election, President Trump will be either able to reap the political benefits of naming many new bridges for himself or cancel some of these projects.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had an early viral moment in 2019 when she lashed out at people holding up the green transition: “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” she said. “And your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?” You can’t look at New York’s transit projects, where it costs billions to build a mile of subway, and conclude that the city doesn’t pay. The problem, rather, is that the government insists on tripping itself up. The ludicrously slow pace of construction in the United States would not be such a big deal if the world wasn’t facing, as Ocasio-Cortez points out, a climate crisis. What the United States has lost sight of is that the public might prefer a government that does something rather than one that’s so exquisite about process. When public works arrive seriously over budget, when the state is barely able to maintain existing infrastructure, when timelines for a new train or a new station can be more than a decade away, we have to question whether the present approach is fit for purpose.
To succeed, the United States doesn’t need to adopt China’s means of construction. This book has detailed how the engineering state’s approach has wrought horrors and is no longer fit for purpose even in China. Rather, the United States can look toward other Western countries, like Spain, Germany, and Japan, which strike a better balance between public consultation and environmental review on the one hand and getting stuff built on the other.
To achieve all of this, I propose—very gently—to unwind the dominance of lawyers in the United States. That will require us to confront the proceduralism that exists inside government and broader society. And it will require us to renew our faith in government institutions to deliver essential services.
It is difficult, I confess, to pry American political institutions out of the grip of law schools. They have built not just a pipeline funneling graduates into the federal judiciary; ambitious students have cleared paths toward the White House and executive agencies too. It is even harder to change the more fundamental philosophical basis of American law. The United States inherited a common law system typical for anglophone countries, in which judges have much more discretion (relative to legislatures) to shape the law. It is no coincidence that housing and infrastructure costs are astronomically high across the anglosphere, including in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Ireland.
The United States will not overcome the lawyerly society by debating the kinds of issues that law students thrill to: the correct ruling on any particular case or the personalities on the Supreme Court. I want to invoke the classic line by professor Grant Gilmore, in a text often assigned to first-year law students: “The worse the society, the more law there will be. In hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”
Rather, I want Americans to experience what the previous generation of Chinese have felt: a sense of optimism about the future driven in large part by physical dynamism. Chinese who have experienced the country’s blistering economic growth over the past four decades look to the past with pride and to the future with hope. When residents of Chongqing or Shenzhen see a new cityscape unfold before their eyes, they expect the future to keep changing for the better.
When my parents emigrated, China’s economy was growing above 10 percent a year; if they had stayed in Kunming, they would have felt like they were living in a new city roughly every seven years, since that’s how long it takes for the economy to double. Each time they return to visit their parents, they discover a new, cleaner, better city. Such growth rates are beyond the United States’ wildest dreams. They’re also no longer in China’s reach. But the engineering state continues to build big works because the political economy is fully geared toward it. My parents traded their life in China for the quiet comforts of suburban Philadelphia. It has been good for us, but we all feel that the United States has become distinctly unambitious.
The path forward demands that we reclaim a sense of optimism: an ability to make plans and deliver on them. The United States has to do two things to overcome the lawyerly society.
First, it has to remember that the country has a heritage of engineering. America built beautiful cities full of monumental buildings. Throughout the nineteenth century, it filled these cities with engineering marvels: the world’s then-longest suspension bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan (later superseded in length by the Golden Gate Bridge), the world’s first skyscrapers in Chicago, subway lines in New York City that ranked with any in Europe. It built bridges, tunnels, highways, and railroads. It demonstrated the technological sublime, like fleets of nuclear-powered submarines as well as vessels that brought humans to walk on the surface of the moon.
Second, the United States needs to elevate a greater diversity of voices among its elites. The most important American virtue is the commitment to pluralism—the ability of diverse cultures to coexist and thrive under equal protection. It means lawyers should be joined by engineers, economists, and other sorts of humanists to make sure that the country is able to work for the many, not only the few.
China, classified in 2025 as an “upper middle-income” country by the World Bank, will in a few years cross the “high income” threshold. Beijing will not celebrate that achievement. “No matter how China’s economy develops in the future and how its international status improves,” Communist Party propaganda organs blared in 2023, “China will always be a developing country.”
I find that beautiful.
This declaration is part of a cynical diplomatic effort to convince the poorer countries of the world that China stands for their interests. That’s not the appeal for me. Rather, I think it is wise for the country to declare that it is “developing.” The United States should do that too. Isn’t it better than to be a “developed” one, which implies that you’re done, finished, at the end of the road? Leave “developed” status, I say, to Europe’s beautiful mausoleum economy.
Over the past forty years, China has resembled the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Both were feeling their way into superpower status. It was a time for building great works but also a time when scam artists and swindlers abounded, cheating people of their savings for fantastic investment projects. Both were focused on scaling up established technologies rather than doing great new science. Neither country was a great inventor of new products over these periods. Rather, they stole and copied from real scientific innovators: the United Kingdom and Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, the Western world at the start of the twenty-first.
Then the United States exited its Gilded Age. The masses lost their affection, to the extent they ever had any, for the robber barons and their domination of the political system. American progressives launched all sorts of reforms to set the country on a better path. The country harnessed its commitment of transformation to improve its civil service, build new cities throughout its vast territories, and demonstrate that democracies are not militarily weak.
That commitment to transformation is an ideology that both the United States and China share. The United States has a distinctly ideological character as a nation, founded on values and principles rather than heritage; modern China is intent on proving that its historical heritage is glorious. Both countries have an ethos of self-transformation that have become deformed in various ways. For both countries to develop the potential of its people, they have to figure out how to fully express their transformational urge.
Part of the process that drove Deng Xiaoping to embark on reform and opening was his tours to rich countries: A visit to a Texas supermarket, offering so much choice, overwhelmed him; when he heard that an auto worker at Japan’s Nissan might be able to produce ninety-four cars a year, while an auto worker in China could produce but one, he realized this was modernity. Now these roles are reversed. It is China that executes on highly complex tasks and Americans who should be looking on with astonished expressions, wondering if they can recover the ability to do such things themselves.
The Communist Party’s method of expressing its transformational urge is a top-down effort to organize centralized campaigns of inspiration, which it deployed to achieve communism and, subsequently, economic growth. There would have been every reason to expect Deng to fail when he became China’s top leader in 1980. The country had just suffered through the lethal utopian experiments of the Mao years. Deng unleashed the terror of the one-child policy at the same time as his economic reform program. Reform and opening suffered bruising setbacks over the course of the next fifteen years, especially after Deng ordered the army to clear Beijing of protesters in 1989. But then economic growth really did take hold.
The question all of this is leading up to is, Who is better positioned for the future?
Beijing has been taking the future dead seriously for the past four decades. That is why China will not outcompete the United States. The engineering state has delivered great things. But the Communist Party is made up of too many leaders who distrust their own people and have little idea how to appeal to the rest of the world. They will continue to bring literal-minded solutions for their problems, attempting to engineer away their challenges, leaving the situation worse than they found it. Beijing will never be able to draw on the best feature of the United States: Embracing pluralism and individual rights. The Communist Party is too afraid of the Chinese people to give them real agency. Beijing will not recognize that the creatives and entrepreneurs it is chasing into exile are not the enemy. It will not accept that their creative energy could bring as much prestige to China as great public works.
But there are still some things that the United States can learn from the engineering state. Although the creative class wants to rùn, the material benefits for most of China’s population are widely spread. The reason that consent of the governed is still pretty strong in China is that Chinese have seen their conditions of life improve immeasurably, such that most people have space in their lives to do most of what they want, most of the time. Part of the hopefulness of prior decades has evaporated under Xi, which is another substantial reason that China will not outcompete the United States. But Xi can still count on momentum from China’s many strengths to push the engineering state to achieve astounding building feats over the next decade.
The United States has lost its ability not only to build but also, in part, to govern. The procedure-obsessed left and the destructive right have robbed from the people the sense that physical dynamism is desirable. But the United States has pluralistic values, which positions it to better figure out the right solutions.
I’ve written this book because the very thing that drew my parents to the United States—not lawyers, but pluralism—still provides the potential for course correction. The ultimate reason to be hopeful for the United States is that it can look to its own history to see the path forward. You can see the musculature of the engineering state amid the mighty industrial works scattered all over the country. There’s a natural legacy it has to draw on to stage this next act of transformation.
What the United States presently lacks is the urgency to make the hard choices to build. Americans have to trust that society can flourish without empowering lawyers to micromanage everything. The United States should embrace its transformational urge. I hope one day that America can declare itself to be a developing country too. It can demonstrate that the country is able to reform itself, get unstuck from the status quo, and ultimately unlock as much as possible of human potential. “Developing” is a term to embrace with pride.
Acknowledgments
Gavekal Dragonomics was the best possible place to think about China. When I had lunch with Arthur Kroeber in New York one day in 2016, I didn’t imagine that his assignment for me to study China’s technology developments would plunge me into an adventure between Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai. Arthur is a source of wisdom and good judgment, not only on China, but indeed all things. Andrew Batson taught me how to be an analyst and made me a better writer. Louis Gave ran the company with good cheer and filled its ranks with deeply curious colleagues. Simon Cartledge, friend of the firm, made Hong Kong a more intellectual city. I am glad to have worked with them all.
And the Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center was the best possible place to write a book about China. Professor Paul Gewirtz was the most encouraging mentor imaginable. I am immensely grateful to Paul for arranging a perch for me to reflect on China at just the right remove from the neuroses of both Beijing and Washington, DC. The Paul Tsai China Center was packed with wonderful and knowledgeable colleagues. I am fortunate to have had access to the MacMillan Center (which generously named me a lecturer), the Jackson School, and the broader community of scholars at Yale, including Arne Westad, Jing Tsu, Dan Mattingly, Paul Kennedy, Zach Liscow, David Schleicher, and more.
I break into hives whenever I hear anyone offer a highly confident view of what Beijing will do. Others of us know better. We were analysts, journalists, executives, and diplomats who were aware that none of us held more than fragmentary knowledge on what’s going on in the heads of the leadership. I am grateful to the scores of people in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC, with whom I chatted over coffee, lunch, or drinks to engage in that exercise in humility: piecing fragments together.
Toby Mundy had faith in this book before I had a real idea of how to write it. Toby is the most thoughtful and skilled agent one could ask for at every step of the process, from pitching to production. I count my blessings that Toby steered me toward Caroline Adams, my editor at Norton, who bowls me over with her combination of talent, patience, and enthusiasm. Thanks to Pat Wieland, Rebecca Homiski, Kyle Radler, and the entire team at Norton, which is a dream to work with. Leah Paulos of Press Shop brought this book to the attention of many. At Penguin Press, I could count on Casiana Ionita’s steadfast support, while Fiona Livesey helped bring the book to a global audience.
This book wouldn’t be what it is without the support and companionship of Hugo Lindgren, who elevated my ambitions and enlivened its stories. I prospered from Hugo’s regular infusions of writerly confidence. My thanks to Uri Bram, who introduced me both to Toby (whom he called “the best of all agents”) and Hugo (“the world’s finest editor”). Uri is correct. If my spirit wavered, I could expect Nick Bagley to rouse me with his exuberance. The lawyerly society came together after I listened to Nick’s appearance on the Ezra Klein Show and over regular lunches in Ann Arbor. I recommend his forthcoming book as well as his services as a wedding officiant.
This book is stronger from manuscript workshops run by Stephen Kotkin of the Hoover History Lab at Stanford, as well as Henry Farrell and Jessica Chen Weiss of Johns Hopkins SAIS. Breakneck is written from a perspective that makes most political scientists tart and many historians grumpy. I am full of thanks that scholars nonetheless came together to read my manuscript and offer feedback: Stephen Kotkin, Joseph Torigian, Joseph Ledford, Glenn Tiffert, Graham Webster, Covell Meyskens, Anthony Gregory, Eyck Freymann, Weila Gong, and Ria Roy in Palo Alto; Henry Farrell, Jessica Chen Weiss, Tom Orlik, Todd Tucker, James Palmer, Jeremy Wallace, Eugene Wei, and Steven Teles in DC. Henry Farrell and Eugene Wei are intellectual teddy bears; every time I see them I want to take them into my arms and squeeze.
Many people offered encouragement for this book project before I commenced writing, most of all Tyler Cowen. I have felt unbroken gratitude since I was in college that Tyler has taken an interest in my work. We have continued the conversation in Dali, Taipei, Virginia, and, I hope, many more places to come. Eva Dou, Noah Smith, Ben Thompson, Tracy Alloway, Brad DeLong, Patrick Collison, Ezra Klein, Chris Schroeder, Simon Cartledge, Yiren Lu, Stephen Green, Yanmei Xie, Kevin Kelly, Arjun Narayan, Kevin Kwok, and many others gave me early encouragement for this book. I am tremendously grateful to Chris Miller, Evan Osnos, James Crabtree, Tim Hwang, and Henry Farrell for sharing drafts of their proposals.
I am indebted to Arthur Kroeber, Greg Ip, Nick Bagley, Christian Pfrang, and Ola Rye Malm for reading the entire manuscript. And to those who read it in parts, especially my Shanghai friends who offered their perspectives on the lockdown: Ken Jarrett, Ian Driscoll, Gavin Cross, Mattie Bekink, Victor Bekink, Eric Goldwyn, Christian Shepherd, Teng Bao, Jeff Lonsdale, Chris Delong, Hollis Robbins, Kristina Daugirdas, David Schleicher, John Ryan, Patrick Steigler, Gabriel Crossley, Chris Zheng, and others.
第七章：学会爱上工程师
My life in New Haven was simple: I went from the library to the squash courts and then back to the library. On the courts, I am glad to have had Nick Frisch, John Ryan, and Nicholas Bequelin as regular partners, all of us equally endowed with little skill but much enthusiasm. Darius Longarino, Karman Lucero, Changhao Wei, and Jeremy Daum kept the office fun with the occasional board-game night. Paul Gewirtz took me to unbelievably prime seats at the ballet. Soaring Eagle kept things interesting. When I craved some of the stimulations in New York, Dave Petersen and Eugene Wei laid out a spare bed for me. Thank you to everyone who made it fun.
- 2211974 年，罗伯特·卡罗出版了：《罗伯特·卡罗，权力掮客：罗伯特·摩西与纽约的衰落》（克诺夫·道布尔戴出版社，1974 年）。
- 222撕心裂肺：卡罗，权力掮客，522。
- 224认真对待海曼·里科弗海军上将：马克·沃特曼，《海曼·里科弗海军上将：动力工程师》（耶鲁大学出版社，2022 年）。
- 225彼得·蒂尔的妙语中蕴含着：布莱克·马斯特斯，“CS183：创业——彼得·蒂尔课堂笔记，第 11 课笔记论文”，布莱克·马斯特斯（Tumblr），2012 年 5 月 11 日。
- 227总体而言，一半的美国租房者： “近一半的租房家庭面临成本负担，不同种族的比例有所不同”，美国人口普查局新闻室，2024 年 9 月 12 日。
- 10a cost of $36 billion: Rose Yu, “China’s Busiest High-Speed Rail Line Makes a Fast Buck,” China Realtime blog, Wall Street Journal, updated July 20, 2016.
- 227成本是其五倍：美国第二大道：25亿美元/公里（2023年美元）；法国一号线：4.57亿美元/公里（2023年美元）。交通成本项目，《数据告诉我们什么》，最后更新于2024年2月27日。
- 101.35 billion passenger trips: “京沪高铁累计旅客发送量约13.5亿人次” [The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway has transported approximately 1.35 billion passengers], People’s Daily, June 24, 2021.
- 228没有一户人家接入宽带： “哈里斯宽带推广计划彻底失败”，《华尔街日报》，2024 年 10 月 4 日。
- 10is $128 billion: Ralph Vartabedian, “New Cost Estimate for California High-Speed Project Puts It Deeper in the Red,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2023.
- 228建设电动汽车充电站：香农·大阪， 《华盛顿邮报》，2024 年 3 月 29 日，“拜登对电动汽车充电的 75 亿美元投资两年内只建成了 7 个充电站”
- 11an extra mountain range: Ralph Vartabedian, “How California’s Bullet Train Went off the Rails,” New York Times, October 9, 2022.
- 228众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯：威廉·卡明斯，“‘如果我们不解决气候变化问题，世界将在 12 年内毁灭’，奥卡西奥-科尔特斯说”，《今日美国》，2019 年 1 月 22 日。
- 11tout the number of high-paying jobs: “News Release: Putting Jobs First: California High-Speed Rail Crosses 13,000 Construction Jobs Milestone,” California High-Speed Rail Authority, March 19, 2024.
- 229格兰特·吉尔摩教授的经典名言：格兰特·吉尔摩，《美国法律的时代》（耶鲁大学出版社，2014 年），第 99 页。
- 11broadly failed to build: Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson, “The Strange and Awful Path of Productivity in the U.S. Construction Sector,” Working Paper no. 30845, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2023, rev. February 2023.
- 231共产党宣传机关高喊：习近平，《习近平：中国永远是发展中国家的一员》，《人民日报》，2023年8月24日。
- 12“Sue the bastards!”: Paul Sabin, Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism (W. W. Norton, 2021), 101.
- 232每年 94 辆汽车： Odd Arne Westad 和 Chen Jian，《大转型：中国从革命到改革的道路》（耶鲁大学出版社，2024 年），第 226 页。
- 13“American aristocracy”: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Library of America, 2004), 309.
Book writing would have been so much lonelier without the companionship of Silvia Lindtner. She is sensitive not only because she has written a book herself; Silvia is also the wisest and most caring person I know. We have gone on adventures together, we have dealt with grief together, we have debated together, and we have experienced so much joy with each other. I never want our conversation to end.
This book is dedicated to my parents, Frank and Rachel. I respect my mom and dad for having the boldness to rùn before it was a thing, no less with a little one in tow. There’s nothing I would change about my childhood. The best lesson I learned as a Royal Canadian Army Cadet was to treat the most difficult things as the most simple things. I want the best for you, which is why I hope you consider the difficult: going out for more exercise, adopting another dog, getting involved with the local community, and, maybe one day, moving to Sunset Park.
Notes
Chapter 1: Engineers vs. Lawyers
延伸阅读建议
- 保罗·萨宾的《公共公民：对大政府的攻击和美国自由主义的重塑》（WW Norton，2021 年）讲述了美国向律师社会的过渡（这不一定是作者会如何描述的） 。
- 15“On Wall Street, Lawyers Make More Than Bankers Now”: Cara Lombardo, “On Wall Street, Lawyers Make More Than Bankers Now,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2023.
- 对美国法律文化的概述可参见罗伯特·卡根的《对抗式法律主义：美国的法律之道》（哈佛大学出版社，2003 年）。
- 15“Pay for Lawyers Is So High People Are Comparing It to the NBA”: Maureen Farrell and Anupreeta Das, “Pay for Lawyers Is So High People Are Comparing It to the N.B.A.,” New York Times, July 1, 2024, updated July 2, 2024.
- Arthur Kroeber 在其著作《中国经济：每个人都需要知道的事》（牛津大学出版社，2020 年第二版）中讨论了中国的建设规模及其政治经济运作方式。
- 16In the words of one 1991 paper: Kevin M. Murphy, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny, “The Allocation of Talent: Implications for Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, no. 2 (1991): 503–530.
- 要了解中国如何融入亚洲的增长故事，没有比乔·斯图德威尔的《亚洲如何运作》（Grove Press，2014 年）更具说服力的书籍了。
- 刘慈欣的《三体》三部曲（Tor Books，2016）阐述了产业党的基本观点。
- 22monkey tricksters: Mark Elvin, Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (Yale University Press, 2006), 265.
- 宋健的影响故事在苏珊·格林哈尔格的《一个孩子：邓小平时代的科学与政策》（加州大学出版社，2008 年）一书中有所记载。
- 24one of every seven guitars: “Economic Watch: Chinese Guitar-Making Industry Rides on Wave of Belt and Road Initiative,” Xinhua, September 21, 2023.
- 凯·安·约翰逊的《中国的隐匿儿童：遗弃、收养和独生子女政策的人类代价》（芝加哥大学出版社，2017 年）详细阐述了遗弃儿童及其令人心碎的后果。
- 26shelters into art exhibitions: “Chongqing’s Air-Raid Shelters Revived as Commercial Venues,” Xinhua, January 5, 2024.
- 对中国在实施新冠疫情零感染政策期间的生活最有趣的描述是彼得·海斯勒的《其他河流：中国教育》（企鹅出版社，2024 年）。
- 27ranked fourth among provinces in China by length: “2022年中国高速公路里程同比增加0.29万公里 其中广东省高速公路里程居于首位” [In 2022, China’s highway mileage increased by 2,900 kilometers compared to the previous year, with Guangdong Province ranking first in total highway mileage], Insight and Info, November 22, 2023.
- 关于逃离汉朝统治的最重要的书籍，跨越数千年，是詹姆斯·C·斯科特的《不被统治的艺术：东南亚高地无政府主义史》（耶鲁大学出版社，2010 年）。
- 28half of Guizhou’s children attended high school: “China National Human Development Report 2013 Sustainable and Liveable Cities: Toward Ecological Civilization” (United Nations Development Programme, 2013), 108.
- 为什么美国应该建设？请参阅 Ezra Klein 和 Derek Thompson 的《富足》（Avid Reader Press，2025 年）。
- 28hike through harrowing mountain paths: “Long Walk to School through Mountains in SW China,” China Daily, March 29, 2013.
- 或许所有关于中国的书籍中，最好的要数扶霞·邓洛普的《宴席邀请：中国美食的故事》（WW Norton，2023）。
- 29China had built a second batch of expressways: Jean-Paul Rodrigue, “Length of the Interstate Highway System and of the Chinese Expressway System, 1959–2021,” Geography of Transport Systems, accessed January 29, 2025.
Chapter 2: Building Big
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